This is an animated before-and-after view of the
crater formed after a Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon’s surface on Aug. 5,
2026. These images were taken between Aug. 11 and 12 by the Narrow-Angle Camera
on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These images are enlarged three times
from the original, with north facing up, and they cover an area about a quarter
of a mile wide.
NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines
Between Aug. 11 and 12, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured
a series of images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on Aug. 5,
when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the surface following its January 2025 launch of
the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission.
To capture imagery of the impact,
engineers tilted the spacecraft so its cameras would point toward the crater
each time LRO passed about 60 miles above the Moon, traveling 1 mile per
second. The
orbiter circles the Moon from pole to pole every two hours, while the Moon slowly rotates
underneath it. To photograph a specific spot, the spacecraft must wait until
that location turns into view, which took six days in this case.
Getting the pointing right was only
half the challenge; timing had to be accurate as well. If the camera snapped
even 10 seconds too early or too late, the target would drift off-center by 10
miles.
An artist concept video showing NASA's Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the Moon.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image
Lab
Because of the variety of viewing angles, scientists could see the crater
under multiple lighting conditions that revealed unique features. In images
where the crater rim stood out, scientists measured its 60‑foot width.
Scientists also determined the crater is less than 10 feet deep based on the
length of its shadow.
To capture these details, LRO used its Narrow-Angle Camera, which can spot features as small as 3 feet wide.
Collected between Aug. 11 and 12 by NASA’s Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, six days after a Falcon 9 upper-stage booster impacted
the Moon, these images were taken from different viewing angles, bringing out
different features. The darker area that fans around the crater in the
upper-left image is rougher than the surroundings, as this surface material has
been altered over a long time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and
micrometeorite impacts. The brighter rays and splotch above the crater in the
lower-right image is fresher material that was excavated from deeper below the
surface. The pictures are arranged in the order they were taken, starting at
the top left and moving toward the bottom right, with the lighting angle from
the Sun gradually changing from one image to the next. Each image is enlarged
two times and shows an area of the Moon about 1,000 feet wide.
NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines
The images above show bright and dark rays stretching out from the crater. The darker streaks are made of surface dust and rocks altered over a long time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. This weathered material was excavated by the collision from 1.5 feet into the lunar surface. The brighter streaks near the crater rim are made of fresh material excavated from deeper underground.
This image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
shows two oval regions where the Falcon 9 upper stage was likely to impact the
Moon, based on calculations by engineers with NASA’s Center for Near Earth
Object Studies. Both ellipses are 2.1 miles long and 0.4 miles wide. Both
predictions use the same booster-trajectory calculations, but only the blue
ellipse takes into account the lunar terrain (vs. a smooth sphere). The red and
blue dots show predicted impact locations, whereas the cyan dot shows the actual
impact site.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Finding the impact site took global coordination among experts and
hobbyists. Independent astronomers first identified the rocket’s trajectory
using publicly available data. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which tracks natural objects that could pose hazards
to Earth for the agency’s Planetary Defense program, used this opportunity to
test and validate tools and techniques for predicting impacts.
Based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Southern California, the center incrementally refined the
trajectory until identifying the location of impact, which it provided to the
Republic of Korea for their Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (Danuri) team. The
team used the high-resolution LUTI camera on Danuri a few hours later to image
the crater, finding the prediction was accurate to about 0.6 miles.
After capturing images of the crater, the Danuri mission sent coordinates to NASA’s LRO team to help refine their follow-up imaging sequence. Comparing their new crater images with the pre-impact images, the LRO team updated the crater center coordinates: 19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 meters elevation.
Source: Hubble Solves Merger Mystery From Milky Way’s Early Years - NASA Science
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