A four-tonne piece of a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is believed to have crashed into the moon on Wednesday in an uncontrolled collision.
The object, about the size of a building, was the rocket's upper stage, which had been drifting in space since launching a lunar lander for Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025. It hit the lunar surface at approximately 0635 GMT on Aug. 5, traveling at 5,400 miles per hour.
The impact was unintentional and poses no danger to Earth, but was expected to blast out a new crater on the moon. There has been no official confirmation of the crash, though its trajectory had made the collision appear inevitable.
The incident has also highlighted concerns about the threat of space debris to future lunar bases, as discarded rocket parts are often left in unstable orbits.