- A SpaceX rocket segment, which had been drifting for a year, slammed into the moon Wednesday, marking the latest instance of space debris hitting the lunar surface.
- Although the 5,400-mph collision was not directly observed, a telescope in Chile detected a debris plume, with scientists confirming the presence of sodium and lithium stretching for miles after the impact.
- SpaceX said the crash was unintentional, attributing the rocket's collision course to a combination of solar activity and gravitational forces after it launched two lunar landers in January 2025.
- It’s the latest instance of lunar litter, a problem that many fear could get worse as the U.S. and China race to put astronauts on the moon. In 2022, a Chinese rocket unintentionally hit the moon following a lunar mission, and many more stray rocket pieces likely struck the moon in decades past without scientists' knowledge.
- The impact occurred near the Einstein Crater on the moon’s sunlit western limb, and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to provide photographic confirmation of the resulting crater next week.
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