Welp, Nobody Saw SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Crash Into the Moon
Astronomers failed to capture direct images of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage crashing into the moon due to difficult lighting and location conditions. While no visual confirmation exists, indirect evidence from the European Southern Observatory suggests the impact occurred as predicted.
Why it matters
This event underscores the challenges of tracking space debris and the importance of international cooperation in monitoring lunar impacts.
The timing of the crash landing was well documented, giving astronomers plenty of time to train their telescopes and instruments on the moon in hopes of catching a lunar first: an impact flash on the lit side of the moon.
When the time came, though, no observatory managed to obtain a direct image of the collision of the rocket, which was traveling at about 5,400 mph at the time of impact. The strongest evidence of the impact so far comes from an observation made in Chile. According to the Associated Press, scientists using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope detected a stream of sodium and lithium that appeared a few minutes after the predicted time of the collision.
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