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Piece of SpaceX rocket to crash into moon at high speed

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A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year is on track to smash into the moon at high speed early on Wednesday morning.

The school bus-sized object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace towards the moon ‌in January 2025.

Weighing four tonnes (4,000kg), the rocket body is due to hit the moon around 2.35am ET (0635 GMT), hitting its surface at 8,690km/h (5,400 mph).

The space junk will kick up a plume of lunar dust that is likely to be illuminated by sunlight but difficult to spot with the naked eye from Earth.

The impact is unintentional, SpaceX said. The rocket piece is expected to hit Einstein Crater on the moon’s western limb, which is often difficult to see from Earth.

Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter map shows the predicted impact site for a Falcon 9 rocket part, expected to strike the moon on Wednesday, and the locations of other moon landers. Image: Nasa

Such stages typically fall back into ⁠Earth’s atmosphere and burn up or plunge into the ocean after boosting the rocket’s payload to a precise spot in orbit.

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