SpaceX rocket piece 'crashes' into Moon: 4-tonne stage hurtles in at 8,700 kmph

A four-tonne piece of SpaceX rocket debris is believed to have slammed into the Moon at around 8,700 kmph, after drifting through space for more than a year.The impact was not immediately verified by astronomers, who were tracking the event with powerful telescopes and cameras. The crash site lies near the Moon's visible edge, making it difficult to observe from Earth. The confirmation may take hours, according to Reuters.The collision was expected to gouge out a crater roughly 18 metres wide and 4 metres deep, while sending lunar dust and broken rock flying across the surface. The resulting dust plume could extend for miles and may be visible in telescope images, although not to the naked eye.The impact poses no threat to Earth. Nasa plans to study images of the site and compare the surface before and after the collision to learn more about how objects hitting the Moon alter its surface.Why was a SpaceX rocket left in space?The object was the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket used to launch a Firefly Aerospace lunar lander in January 2025. Normally, after a rocket delivers its payload, its discarded stage falls back through Earth's atmosphere and burns up or ends up in the ocean.This mission was different because the rocket had to provide enough thrust to send the lander towards the Moon. The second stage therefore remained in space after completing its job.It had already exhausted its fuel and could no longer be steered. Astronomers later discovered that changes caused by solar activity and gravity had gradually shifted its orbit onto a path that intersected with the Moon.The incident is unusual but not unprecedented. A Chinese rocket stage hit the Moon in 2022, while Nasa has deliberately crashed rocket stages into the lunar surface to study the resulting dust, rocks and seismic effects.