Rogue SpaceX Rocket Is About To Smash Into The Moon At 5,400 MPH
A leftover three-ton SpaceX rocket stage is set for an unavoidable collision course with the Moon at a speed of 5,400 mph (or seven times the speed of sound) in the early hours this Wednesday, August 5.
The rogue hardware in question is the spent upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket launched back in January 2025 that propelled the Blue Ghost and Hakuto-R landers toward the Moon. Once its engines shut down and the landers separated, the five-story booster was left behind in a somewhat orbit. For over a year, gravitational tugs between the Earth, Sun, and Moon tossed the defunct shell around like a pinball in slow motion (relatively speaking).
Interestingly, tracking the falling object wasn't made by military tracking radars. Instead, it fell to automated asteroid surveys and dedicated skywatchers across the globe. Independent astronomer Bill Gray of Project Pluto compiled over a thousand of these optical...
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