A spent section of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is believed to have crashed into the Moon, with astronomers now waiting for images and telescope data to confirm the impact.
The collision is predicted to take place at about 07:35 BST, but as it will take place during the daytime and be visible to several locations around the world, scientists believe that it may take hours, if not weeks, before any evidence becomes available.
Did SpaceX rocket just crash into the Moon?
The object concerned is the upper portion of the Falcon 9 rocket, which is a piece of junk that has a length of approximately 14 metres and a weight of at least 4,000 kilograms on earth.
After being used to launch an American and Japanese lunar mission in January 2025, it was left to drift in space rather than be brought back to earth, and due to some gravitational and solar effects, it ended up on a collision path with the moon.
It will land in the vicinity of the Einstein Crater on the sunlit side of the moon.
Though the collision is too dim to be visible to the naked eye, there are currently examinations being done using telescopes to try to find evidence of the collision.
According to Rodrigo Palominos, who is an observatory worker at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, he found changes in the emission of light at the predicted time of the collision, an “encouraging preliminary result” that might indicate the material that came out as a result of the collision.
NASA will be studying this phenomenon to improve methods of tracking other bodies in outer space and to gather new information regarding the moon.
