SpaceX Moon crash crater shown in NASA images

NASA released new images on Tuesday showing the crater left when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon earlier this month.

The photographs were taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter between August 11 and 12. NASA scientists said the impact crater, formed on August 5, was about 60 feet wide, or 18 metres, and less than 10 feet deep, based on the length of its shadow.

The Falcon 9 launched in January 2025 carrying Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander, a private mission that made a soft landing on the Moon.

NASA said the new images were not the first pictures of the crash site. The Korean space agency published images on August 6 that were taken a day earlier by the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, also known as Danuri.

NASA said photographing the site was difficult because the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had to wait six days for the location to rotate into view and had to be tilted so its camera pointed at the crater while passing about 60 miles overhead. NASA said a camera timing error of 10 seconds would have shifted the target off-centre by 10 miles.

NASA said the images showed bright and dark streaks around the crater. It said darker streaks came from surface dust and rocks altered over time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays and micrometeorite impacts, while brighter streaks near the rim were fresh material excavated from deeper underground.

NASA said its Center for Near Earth Object Studies refined the rocket's trajectory and gave the impact location to Korea. The Danuri team then sent coordinates to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team to help refine its follow-up imaging sequence.