NASA Images Show Aftermath Of SpaceX Falcon 9 Slamming Into The Moon

by Aaron Leong — Wednesday, August 19, 2026, 11:42 AM EDT

The Earth peeking from behind the Moon - Image: NASA

Newly released NASA orbital photos have revealed the final impact spot of the derelict SpaceX rocket stage on the Moon, offering scientists a better look at how artificial collisions can shape the lunar surface.

The Moon obtained a fresh scar on August 5 when an 8,800-pound Falcon 9 upper stage slammed into its surface at about 5,400 mph. The booster had originally launched in January of last year to carry commercial lunar payloads (including Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander) before spending over a year drifting through space in a chaotic orbit. Detonating with a force equivalent to nearly three tons of TNT upon impact, the spent hardware left a crater roughly 60 feet (18 meters) across and less than 10 feet (3 meters) deep.

Between August 11 and August 12, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) did a sweep over the crash site to capture some post-impact shots using its Narrow-Angle Camera. Operating 60 miles above the lunar terrain at a velocity of roughly one mile per second, the LRO had to be tilted specifically toward the crater during its pass. Because the orbiter completes a polar loop every two hours while the Moon slowly turns beneath it, engineers had to wait six days for the collision target to align properly, so a timing error of, say, 10 seconds would have shifted the camera frame by 10 miles, completely missing the site.

Different viewing angles of the impact as captured by the LRO between Aug 11 and 12 - Image: NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines

The resulting photographs show ejecta patterns radiating outward from the central depression, and in the process reveal two types of displaced lunar soil, known as regolith. Darker streaks extending from the rim consist of shallow surface soil that was altered over eons by exposure to solar wind, cosmic rays, and micrometeorite strikes. Interspersed with these are vivid, bright rays composed of pristine rock and soil from deeper underground layers.

Pinpointing the exact crash location was an international effort that relied on tracking data from ground-based astronomers and calculations by NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies. These predictions thus allowed South Korea's Danuri orbiter to initially confirm the impact zone before LRO captured its own close-ups.

While meteoroid impacts routinely pockmark the Moon, artificial collisions are far less common. As commercial spaceflight and lunar exploration expand rapidly under NASA’s Artemis program and private initiatives, however, it is likely that more spent rocket stages and defunct spacecraft will continue interacting with the Moon's environment.