SpaceX rocket moon collision sparks warning over ‘lunar litter’ – and it’ll only get worse
- A SpaceX rocket segment, which had been drifting for a year, slammed into the moon Wednesday, marking the latest instance of space debris hitting the lunar surface.
- Although the 5,400-mph collision was not directly observed, a telescope in Chile detected a debris plume, with scientists confirming the presence of sodium and lithium stretching for miles after the impact.
- SpaceX said the crash was unintentional, attributing the rocket’s collision course to a combination of solar activity and gravitational forces after it launched two lunar landers in January 2025.
- It’s the latest instance of lunar litter, a problem that many fear could get worse as the U.S. and China race to put astronauts on the moon. In 2022, a Chinese rocket unintentionally hit the moon following a lunar mission, and many more stray rocket pieces likely struck the moon in decades past without scientists’ knowledge.
- The impact occurred near the Einstein Crater on the moon’s sunlit western limb, and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to provide photographic confirmation of the resulting crater next week.
More bulletins