Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket crashes into Moon at 5,400 mph: South Korean satellite captures shocking 'before and after' images

A discarded rocket stage of Elon Musk's SpaceX has slammed into the Moon at around 5,400 miles per hour, leaving behind a fresh crater on the lunar surface. Stunning visuals of the human-made crater have now been captured by a South Korean lunar spacecraft.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute's Danuri spacecraft flew over the impact site shortly after the Falcon 9 upper stage crashed into the lunar surface on Wednesday. The satellite made multiple passes over the area and captured images showing the terrain before and after the impact.

Another human-made crater on the Moon

Scientists estimate that the impact could have created a crater up to 27 metres wide and around five metres deep.

The pictures reveal a noticeably darker patch on the Moon where the rocket struck, with dust and debris scattered across the surrounding surface.

KARI said Danuri began observing the region around 30 minutes before the collision and conducted eight imaging sessions in total.

"Through this observation, changes in the terrain around the impact site and traces of ejecta spread were confirmed," the agency said.

What happened to the SpaceX rocket?

The Falcon 9 launched from Florida in January 2025 carrying two private lunar landers, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience, into lunar orbit. The rocket's primary booster was designed to return safely to Earth. But the upper stage was left drifting in space after completing its mission.

It was never supposed to hit the Moon. But a combination of lunar gravity and solar activity eventually pushed the roughly 4,000 to 4,500kg rocket stage onto a collision course with the lunar surface.

Independent astronomers first noticed the unusual trajectory before it was confirmed by NASA's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies.

The rocket, measuring around 12 metres long, eventually hit the Moon at about 8,700 kmph. Researchers estimate the impact packed the force of roughly three tonnes of TNT.

Satellite caught the Moon before and after the crash

Danuri's observations have given scientists an unusually useful record of the impact. Because the spacecraft passed over the region shortly before the collision, researchers can compare the lunar surface before the rocket hit with the landscape after the crash.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is also expected to observe the site during a later pass, providing another look at the crater and surrounding debris.

Researchers in Spain also believe they captured footage of the impact indirectly. The actual flash was hidden behind the Moon's limb, but astronomers say they may have recorded the plume of dust and debris thrown into space by the collision. Watch the stunning visuals here:

Why scientists are interested in the crash

The accidental collision is more than a dramatic space event. Scientists see it as a rare opportunity to study how large objects behave when they strike the lunar surface.

The Moon is regularly bombarded by meteoroids, but scientists often have little information about the exact size and mass of naturally occurring impactors. This time, they know the approximate mass, composition and trajectory of the object. That could allow researchers to study how the impact created a crater and how far material was thrown across the lunar surface.

The Moon has been deliberately used for similar experiments before. In 2006, the European Space Agency intentionally crashed its SMART-1 spacecraft into the lunar surface to study the resulting impact.