A chunk of space hardware just left its mark on the moon. Early on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, the spent upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slammed into the lunar surface at thousands of miles per hour, and scientists say the collision should punch a fresh crater into a world with no atmosphere to soften the blow. The rocket belongs to the company Elon Musk founded, and its accidental hit is only the second time human-made junk is known to have crashed into the moon by accident.
Here’s what we know about the crater the SpaceX rocket may have left behind.
Will the SpaceX Crash Leave a Crater on the Moon?
The short answer is yes. Unlike Earth, the moon has no thick atmosphere to burn up or slow down incoming objects, so even a hollow rocket stage hits at full force. NASA expects the roughly 4-ton stage to gouge out a crater about 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep. A preprint study from nearly two dozen scientists puts the diameter closer to 65 to 90 feet. Astronomer Bill Gray, who tracks this kind of space junk on his Project Pluto site, has pegged it at more than 50 feet across.
Did SpaceX Create One Crater or Two Craters?
That is the part scientists are most curious about. When a Chinese rocket body struck the moon’s far side in 2022, it did something nobody expected and carved out a double crater, roughly 90 feet across at its widest. This time, Gray expects a single pit, since the Falcon 9 upper stage was not carrying extra weight on top. If the impact surprises him again, that alone would tell researchers something about how the stage was built and how it tumbled on the way down.
When Will We See the SpaceX Moon Crater?
Pictures will not arrive right away. The crash itself was over in an instant and far too dim to catch from Earth, even through big telescopes. The real evidence is the crater, and photographing it takes a spacecraft in the right place at the right time. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flew over the impact zone on July 29 and is due back over it on August 12, and comparing those before-and-after images is how scientists will pin down the new scar. That could take up to two weeks. It helps that this one landed on the near side, close to Einstein Crater, rather than the hidden far side where the 2022 crater sat undiscovered for a while.
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