A SpaceX rocket that launched a pair of lunar landers slammed into the moon as predicted after drifting off course for the past year, scientists reported.
Although no one observed the actual 5,400-mph (8,700-kph) collision, a telescope in Chile spotted what astronomers have identified as the debris plume resulting from the crash. Space tracking experts said it was inevitable that the leftover rocket segment plowed into the moon.
It’s the latest instance of lunar litter, a problem that many fear could worsen as the US 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.
SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman said this week that the company is working with NASA to avoid future wrecks, stressing that this projected crash was not deliberate. A combination of solar activity and gravity accidentally put it on a collision course with the moon, she said.
Boston University’s Carl Schmidt said he is “100% certain” that his team’s observations revealed signs of the lunar crash. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope detected a stream of sodium and lithium stretching for miles (tens of kilometers) into space for at least five to 10 minutes following the impact, he added.
“We don’t have images of the impact” but there’s telescope evidence, Schmidt said in an email.
Even before signs of the debris plume were spotted by the telescope in Chile, retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted that observations of the dead 4-ton upper stage on Tuesday night showed it heading straight for the moon.
The anticipated crash site was a dusty, barren patch near Einstein Crater on the moon’s sunlit western limb — near the edge of the near and far sides, which is especially difficult to observe from Earth.
“There’s no doubt in my mind” that the rocket “is now in teeny, little pieces scattered over the moon near Einstein Crater,” McDowell told AP.
“As a physicist, I know that what goes up must come down,” he added.
Stargazers knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, from the ground to see the plume of dust and rock ejected from the resulting crater, let alone the flash of light from the impact. Orbiting spacecraft had the best chance of witnessing anything — or at least observing the crater after the fact.
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek was among those aiming his telescope at the moon at the appointed time, but he came up empty.
“We knew this would be a long shot,” Langbroek said.
Like McDowell, Langbroek said he had “no doubt” the rocket met its doom.
