Discarded SpaceX rocket on high-speed collision course with the moon

A drifting SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon, with the explosive impact expected to be equivalent to three tons of TNT.

The rocket's upper stage will unintentionally slam into the moon next week, carving out a crater and sending up a plume of dust and rubble that scientists and skygazers are eager to observe.

Space tracking expert Bill Gray predicts an impact speed of 5,400mph - seven times the speed of sound - near Einstein Crater on the moon's sunlit western limb when it hits on Wednesday.

The rocket was used to launch a pair of lunar landers more than a year ago, and while scientists are not too concerned about the debris, it highlights the growing threat as more items head into orbit.

"Things are getting crowded up there," said Mr Gray, who plans to view the aftermath from New Brunswick, Canada.

It was never SpaceX's intention to hit the moon, but experts said the crash could have been avoided if the upper stage had been nudged into orbit around the sun.

It will be the second dead rocket known to crash into the moon accidentally, after a Chinese rocket segment left a pair of craters on the lunar far side in 2022.

Luckily for astronomers, the upcoming collision will occur on the moon's near side.

The explosion will have energy equivalent to three tons of TNT, but the impact flash - lasting less than a second - will probably be too dim to see, according to experts.

Nonetheless the stream of ejected material could stretch for several miles into space and remain visible to telescopes for tens of minutes.

The eastern portions of the US and Canada, and much of South America should have the best views.

"The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who's encouraging observations by professionals and amateurs alike.

He added: "Part of the reason for our interest in this event is to figure out how much of a hazard debris impacts pose to future astronauts."

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Dr Fernando anticipates there will be an impact crater nearly 27m (90ft) across and 5m (16ft) deep, too small to see from Earth but visible to spacecraft.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter will gather before-and-after shots of the crash scene.

Danuri will stray within a mile or two of the rocket just two minutes before impact, according to Mr Fernando and his team.

The abandoned rocket segment - measuring some 12m (40ft) and weighing around 4,500kg - hoisted two private lunar landers on 15 January 2025.

One of them - Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost - became the first private spacecraft to pull off a fully-successful lunar touchdown. The other - a lander from Japan-based ispace - wrecked.

With meteoroids and other natural objects offering little if any warning before walloping the moon, scientists said there's much to learn by observing well-tracked strikes by human-made objects.

NASA hurled rocket sections and lunar modules into the moon during the Apollo era for seismic measurements.

In 2009, NASA intentionally crashed its LCROSS spacecraft and upper stage in search of ice near the lunar south pole.

The US and China are racing to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years.

Scientists said it's crucial to improve debris monitoring and traffic control before numerous robots and astronauts arrive.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are vying to provide the lander for NASA's yet-to-be-named moonwalkers of Artemis IV, who will succeed the 12 Apollo astronauts who strolled the lunar surface.

"This impact will not be a problem," retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said.

"But in a future where there are long-term bases on the moon, similar impacts would be an issue and we need not to leave rocket stages in chaotic orbits of this kind."

(c) Sky News 2026: Discarded SpaceX rocket on high-speed collision course with the moon