SpaceX Debris Hits Moon: Seoul Caught It on Camera
More than 27,000 pieces of trackable debris now orbit Earth, per the European Space Agency, and an unknown further quantity drifts beyond geostationary orbit.
SpaceX Debris Hits Moon: Seoul Caught It on Camera
A fragment of a SpaceX Falcon rocket has struck the lunar surface, and South Korea's space agency has the images to prove it. Seoul's Danuri lunar orbiter — launched in 2022 as South Korea's first Moon mission — captured before-and-after photographs of the impact site, providing what scientists are calling the clearest documentation yet of human-made debris creating a new crater on the Moon, according to the BBC.
The debris is believed to be from a Falcon 9 upper stage that had been drifting in an unstable cislunar orbit for years. Space tracking agencies had flagged the collision probability months in advance, but no recovery or deflection was attempted. The crater it left is estimated at roughly 15 metres across.
The incident renews pressure on international bodies to regulate what happens to rocket stages after mission completion. Currently, no binding framework governs the disposal of hardware left in deep space trajectories — a gap that the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has discussed but not resolved.
More than 27,000 pieces of trackable debris now orbit Earth, per the European Space Agency, and an unknown further quantity drifts beyond geostationary orbit. SpaceX has not issued a public statement on the Danuri findings.
The Moon, for now, has no complaints procedure.
