NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of a fresh crater on the Moon between Aug. 11 and 12, days after a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage hit the lunar surface on Aug. 5, according to ScienceDaily.
The rocket stage had launched in January 2025 as part of the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission. To photograph the site, the orbiter had to tilt its cameras while flying about 60 miles above the Moon at roughly 1 mile per second.
Because the Moon rotates slowly beneath the spacecraft, the team had to wait for the right viewing opportunity. NASA said it took six days before the crater rotated into a position that allowed the orbiter to image it, and even a 10-second timing error could have shifted the target by about 10 miles.
Scientists used the new images, taken with the Narrow Angle Camera, to estimate the crater at about 60 feet wide and less than 10 feet deep. The photos also showed bright and dark rays around the impact site, revealing fresh material and older lunar dust and rock that had been altered over time.
NASA said the event also helped test methods for predicting impacts. The agency’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies refined its calculations, shared the predicted location with South Korea’s Danuri mission, and later compared results after Danuri photographed the crater, finding the prediction was accurate to within about 0.6 miles.
