SpaceX rocket stage to hit Moon

The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is on a collision course with the Moon, with impact expected around August 5. This piece of space debris is a remnant from a mission launched on January 15 last year, which carried the Firefly Blue Ghost-1 lunar lander.

Alongside the Firefly lander, the rocket also carried the Hakuto-R Mission 2 robotic lander, developed by the Japanese company ispace. The impending collision is predicted to generate a sufficiently bright impact cloud, according to a study by an international team cited by space.com, making it potentially visible from Earth using sensitive telescopes.

Scientists expect the impact to occur near the Einstein and Bell craters on the western edge of the Moon. William Jo, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, told space.com that calculations suggest the cloud will be several orders of magnitude brighter than the dark night sky for the first few minutes after impact. This event offers a rare opportunity to study impact clouds, which is valuable knowledge for future lunar missions.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will observe the area for approximately seven days before and after the impact, according to Brent Garry from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. This observation campaign aims to gather data on the effects of the collision.