The SpaceX Falcon 9 moon impact appears to have happened, but there is no confirmed image or video of the moment. A Falcon 9 upper stage that launched two lunar landers in January 2025 struck the Moon on Wednesday at roughly 5,400 mph, according to reporting by CBS News and Wired. The best evidence so far is not a crater photo or impact flash. It is a chemical signal recorded after the predicted collision time.
Scientists using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile detected sodium and lithium emissions a few minutes after the expected impact, Wired reported. Carl Schmidt, a planetary scientist at Boston University's Center for Space Physics, told CBS News that spectroscopy detected the plume, which indicated the collision had occurred. A separate observer in Massachusetts also detected sodium emission, CBS News reported.
The observations are indirect. Researchers cited by Wired think sodium came from lunar material thrown up by the collision, while lithium likely came from the rocket stage. That is meaningful corroboration of the predicted impact, but it is not a direct visual record of the strike.
Why was the SpaceX Falcon 9 moon impact not seen?
The collision happened on the illuminated side of the Moon, where a brief impact flash was difficult or impossible to distinguish against the bright surface, according to reporting by CBS News. The event was also extremely quick. A study cited by CBS said even large telescopes were not expected to obtain a direct view, and post-impact accounts reported that no observatory captured one.
That result contradicts some pre-impact forecasts that anticipated an Earth-visible flash or dust plume. The later reporting supports a narrower conclusion: observers had a well-defined time and target, yet no direct capture emerged. Social-media posts purporting to show the impact should therefore be treated with suspicion. Wired reported that hoax imagery was already circulating.
What will follow-up images show?
NASA estimated that the upper stage would leave a crater about 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep, ejecting dust and rock outward. Those figures remain estimates until orbital imaging identifies the site and measures the result.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was expected to collect before-and-after observations of the impact area. CBS News reported that the images could take one or two weeks to emerge. Wired also reported that a South Korean lunar orbiter was due to pass over the region. Neither outlet reported that a crater image had been released.
The object was the rocket's upper stage, not either lunar lander it dispatched. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost-1 landed successfully, while ispace's Hakuto-R crash-landed, CBS News reported. After the launch, the stage remained in an unstable orbit for more than a year. SpaceX director Julianna Scheiman said solar activity and gravitational forces put it on a Moon-bound path; Wired likewise reported that gravity from Earth, the Moon and the Sun altered its trajectory over time.
The impact did not pose a danger to Earth, according to NASA as reported by CBS News. What it produced instead was a useful if frustrating data point: a predicted lunar collision supported by spectroscopy, with the camera footage internet culture would prefer conspicuously absent.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
