NASA Spots 60-Foot Lunar Crater From SpaceX Falcon 9 Debris Collision

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a new 60-foot-wide, 12-foot-deep crater on the Moon after SpaceX Falcon 9’s upper stage crashed there on Aug. 5 from the Jan. 15, 2025 Blue Ghost mission. The imagery, taken Aug. 11–12, required tilting LRO to look straight down with the Narrow-Angle Camera. The impact, traveling about 5,400 mph, involved a stage roughly 39 feet long, 13 feet wide, weighing ~4,000 kg. The darker ejecta rays reflect older surface material, while lighter rim material comes from deeper underground. Independent analysts predicted the collision and helped confirm the event.