SpaceX crash site on moon revealed by South Korean orbiter
An out-of-control SpaceX rocket that crashed into the moon earlier this week did, in fact, leave an impact crater, according to images from a Korean AeroSpace Administration lunar orbiter that caught before-and-after photographs
The first images of the impact crater caused by an out-of-control SpaceX craft have emerged. Part of a SpaceX rocket crashed into the moon at 8700 kilometres per hour on 5 August.
The Danubri lunar orbiter, operated by the Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA), took the images, showing both before and after the impact and revealing that the crash did indeed leave a crater.
The craft in question was the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched in January last year, carrying the Hakuto-R spacecraft from commercial company ispace – which, ironically, also crashed into the moon during an unsuccessful landing attempt.
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Astronomers around the world had trained their telescopes on the spot in the hope of observing the impact, but its tiny size made it virtually impossible for amateur observers to make out.
KASA revealed the images in a post on X and warned that videos being shared on social media purporting to show footage of the impact are fake.
It is thought that the almost 14-metre-long, 4000-kilogram Falcon upper stage impacted the moon at 5.35am BST on 5 August, near to Einstein crater – named for physicist Albert Einstein – which is towards the edge of the visible moon from Earth.
NASA had predicted prior to impact that the crash would create a crater 18 metres wide and 4 metres deep. Further images from a NASA lunar orbiter will provide more detail of the site in the coming days and weeks.
David Rothery at the Open University, UK, says the images make it hard to be certain about the nature of the crater, but that higher-quality ones should emerge in time.
“The moon’s got about 100 million natural craters in that size range, so in the scheme of things, this is nothing,” he says. “You’ll get several a decade of this kind of size forming naturally.”
Unlike the Apollo lander sites, which have been photographed in great detail, even showing the shadow cast by craft to this day, the SpaceX impact site may not show any visible evidence of the craft because of its high impact speed, says Rothery. But the ejected regolith will likely be lighter in colour than the surrounding surface, at least until it is weathered by sunlight over tens of millions of years.
Some had suggested in the wake of the impact that the new crater be named after controversial trillionaire and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, but the suggestion has been shot down by astronomers.
Rita Schulz, chair of the International Astronomical Union Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature (IAU-WGPSN) which oversees naming of celestial objects and features, says it would not be in line with rules on such matters.
“Formal feature naming is restricted to natural geological formations that serve a long-term cartographic and scientific reference purpose for the global community,” says Schulz. “Spacecraft impact sites are frequently given informal or working nicknames by mission teams. The [SpaceX] mission team can give it any nickname they like, but it will not become an official name. “
Furthermore, if a crater is named to commemorate a person, this person has to be deceased for at least three years, says Schulz, while Musk is still alive.
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