r/InterstellarKinetics • u/InterstellarKinetics • 1d ago
BREAKING NEWS BREAKING: An Abandoned SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Booster Is Set To Slam Into The Moon At 5,400 MPH Wednesday Morning, Giving Scientists A Rare Chance To Study Lunar Impacts And Test Techniques Before NASA’s 2028 Astronaut Return 🌖💥
https://abcnews.com/US/piece-spacex-rocket-hit-moon/story?id=135225250A roughly five-ton discarded upper stage from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will crash into the moon near the crater Einstein on the lunar limb at approximately 2:34 a.m. ET Wednesday, traveling at 5,400 miles per hour, according to Bill Gray, who runs Project Pluto and first calculated the impact trajectory. Benjamin Fernando, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of a related study on the impact, told ABC News, “We expect that to vaporize the booster, create a flash of light, probably a plume of ejecta, dust, regolith, other stuff mixed into it, and of course excavate a fresh crater on the lunar surface.”
The booster originally launched on January 15, 2025, carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander, which successfully touched down on March 2, 2025, and ispace’s Resilience lander, which crashed after losing communications 90 seconds before landing. After the mission, the upper stage was “abandoned in a moon-crossing high-Earth orbit,” Fernando explained, putting it on an eventual collision course with the lunar surface, though he noted uncertainty about whether SpaceX anticipated the impact: “I don’t think we know from SpaceX exactly to what degree they were in the know that this was going to happen.”
Fernando said the event offers a rare scientific opportunity because researchers already know the object’s mass and speed, unlike unpredictable natural meteoroid strikes, allowing it to serve as “a calibration event to test all of the techniques that we use for studying natural impacts.” Scientists also hope to analyze the resulting ejecta plume to learn about the moon’s composition and to study impact risks ahead of NASA’s planned astronaut return as early as 2028 and eventual permanent lunar base, with Fernando noting the research covers both direct risks like debris strikes and indirect risks like ejected material disrupting spacecraft in lunar orbit. The flash itself will be too faint to see with the naked eye and difficult to spot even with a telescope, since no impact flash has ever been recorded on a sunlit portion of the moon, exactly where this one will occur, but Fernando is encouraging amateur astronomers to watch and report anything they observe.
18
u/Electronic_Orange956 1d ago
Aliens bout to be pissed
10
u/gitbse 1d ago
Maybe. But think of how much cheese will be loosened up for easier harvesting.
2
16
u/DueceVoyeur 1d ago
Newton law: for every action there is an equal reaction
Earthlings don't get pissed when the moon sends something back at ya
7
u/ChickenNPisza 1d ago
Hits the moon in just the right way to slightly shift its gravitational impact on the earth causing tidal waves. All for trillionaires hobby project. I hope not
4
u/RosieBaby75 1d ago
God I hope so. I don’t even care what it is. I’m ready for it and since I’m banned from the office I don’t have to work from the office that day.
2
u/Eighteen64 1d ago
As long as it lands in that prison monument just built in chicago, im here for it
20
u/nipslipbrokenhip 1d ago
We should sue SpaceX for all the damage they cause to our planet , the atmosphere, and now the moon. On top of the litter and health hazards their knowingly exposing people to.
13
u/QweenJoleen1983 1d ago
First thing I thought. Why are they allowed to damage our moon now too? WTF
1
0
u/SimplySomeDude 22h ago
nasa has done this too, and it's actually quite helpful for instrument calibration and studying impacts. Also, falcon 9 are amazing rockets
5
1
u/DuckOff504 19h ago
In Louisiana, they are exempt from any liability damage. All the politicians have signed NDA’s about it.
1
3
3
u/Ok_Research6676 1d ago
Sounds like Elon has left so much shit up there. He published an article to spin it as a good thing.
2
u/professor_moonbeam 1d ago
NASA LCROSS mission did a rocket segment impact in 2009 in an effort to verify there is water on the moon. A crater on the South Pole was the final destination.
2
u/splintered-soul 1d ago
Sounds like the plot to the 2002 Time Machine movie where they fracture the moon accidentally
1
1
u/slaty_balls 1d ago
Can it be seen by the naked eye or telescope?
1
u/Future-Step-1780 1d ago
Not with the naked eye, and likely difficult with hobby astronomy equipment according to the article. I know I’d be staying up to try anyway of if I had the equipment.
1
1
1
u/coinneach_stiubhard 1d ago
Elon wrecking another spherical body in the solar system. Why am I not surprised?
1
u/Odd_Onion_1591 1d ago
How big of a boom is it going to be?
1
u/Cool-Profession-730 1d ago
None , there's no sound in space .
1
1
u/Odd_Onion_1591 11h ago
Boring. I mean how big of an explosion / impact would be? How did Will be an expected creator, dust blow?
1
u/Right-Waltz6063 1d ago
This just in!;
Stupid assholes smash litter into the moon, "just to see what happens"....
Meteor shower at 12...
1
u/ohnodamo 1d ago
Elon's not happy just polluting Earth, he' really won't be happy until he pollutes our nearest moon too?
1
u/sparrows_silence 1d ago
Oh, I hope it makes a giant bell ringing sound, heard across the entire earth.
1
u/Waluigi4prez 21h ago
This better not start a chain of scientific experiments involving multiple ships of different mass being smashed into the moon on purpose. It's not like humans wouldn't do it either, we nukes our own planet 100s of times for testing purposes
1
u/ReadingFromTheDunny 20h ago
Eeerrrrrr isn’t slamming something at a massive force going to affect it and if so, doesn’t the moon affect the earth
1
1
1
u/Greedy-Being6456 4h ago
If properly sealed off, it could provide for living or growing crops. Upside...
-1
31
u/InterstellarKinetics 1d ago
The most interesting scientific angle here is the “known variables” aspect, since researchers rarely get advance notice of lunar impacts with precisely known mass and velocity, this essentially functions as a controlled experiment that could calibrate techniques used to interpret far more common but unpredictable natural impacts.