Danuri orbiter reveals SpaceX moon crash crater — SkimNews
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- KASA's Danuri orbiter captured before-and-after images of the impact crater, confirming the SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the moon near Einstein crater at about 8,700 km/h on 5 August (5:35am BST), and posted them on X while warning that viral videos purporting to show the crash are fake.
- SpaceX's Falcon 9 upper stage — roughly 14 metres long and 4,000 kg, launched in January 2023 carrying ispace's Hakuto-R lander (which itself crashed on the moon in a failed landing) — is the source of the debris that struck the lunar surface.
- NASA had predicted the impact would create a crater 18 metres wide and 4 metres deep, and additional images from a NASA lunar orbiter are expected in the coming days and weeks to provide higher-resolution detail.
- David Rothery of the Open University said the high impact speed means the craft itself may leave no visible trace, but ejected regolith should appear lighter in colour than surrounding terrain for tens of millions of years.
- Rita Schulz, chair of the IAU Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature, rejected suggestions to name the crater after Elon Musk, noting formal naming is restricted to natural geological formations and commemorative names require the honoree to have been deceased at least three years.
Why it matters: Amateur astronomers and scientists worldwide had been unable to confirm the crash visually because the crater was too small for ground-based telescopes; Danuri's before-and-after imaging settles the question and gives researchers their first look at an artificial-object lunar impact site, while upcoming NASA orbiter images will refine the size and morphology NASA already modeled at 18 metres wide.
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