Here’s the mark a SpaceX rocket crash left on the moon

The evidence is a smudge, dark in some photos and light in others, that’s not visible in other photos of the same area on the moon’s surface near the Einstein Crater.

The Korean lunar orbiter Danuri (also known as the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, or KPLO) captured before and after images of the SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage colliding with the lunar surface as it headed toward the moon, the Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA) reported on X.

The images were captured by the orbiter’s high-resolution Lunar Terrain Imager (LUTI) camera.

The second stage of a SpaceX rocket launched in January 2025 had been drifting off-course for the past year after carrying two lunar landers into space. It made an unintentional but fully anticipated crash onto the moon on Wednesday, at an estimated speed of 8,700 km/hour.

The plume of debris created by the crash was observed by telescopes on Earth, confirming the crash occurred even before the new images were released.

Danuri was itself launched aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2022 and has been orbiting 100 kilometres above the moon’s north and south poles since December of that year. It was originally on a one-year mission, but its lifespan has since been extended to 2027.

Why scientists are racing to study the SpaceX rocket piece believed to have slammed into the moon 

A stray piece of a SpaceX rocket launched last year likely smashed into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning, according to scientists. University of Montreal astrophysicist Nathalie Ouellette explains what researchers can learn from the impact and why commercial space companies need to responsibly manage post-mission debris. — Emily Chung