A SpaceX rocket slammed into the moon this month — and a NASA spacecraft has spotted its lunar grave (photos)

NASA's veteran moon-circling spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), has imaged the impact site of that errant Falcon 9 upper stage. The photos were taken on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, just a few days after the SpaceX rocket body slammed into the moon near Einstein Crater at 5,400 mph (8,690 kph). LRO's high-resolution camera system, known as LROC, got

The top 3

  1. First Object to Impact the Moon: The Soviet Union's Luna 2 probe was the first human-made object to intentionally impact the Moon on September 13, 1959, marking a significant milestone in space exploration.
  2. Largest Intentional Scientific Impact: NASA's LCROSS mission in 2009 intentionally crashed its Centaur upper stage into the Moon's Cabeus crater, ejecting material to search for water ice, a key scientific objective.
  3. Apollo Seismic Experiment Impacts: Apollo mission S-IVB rocket stages were intentionally crashed into the Moon from 1969 to 1972, generating seismic waves studied by surface seismometers to understand the lunar interior.

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