SpaceX Rocket Crashes Into Moon's Surface

The second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched from Cape Canaveral on January 15, 2025, and carried two private moon vehicles, has crashed into the moon's surface at a speed of 8,700 kilometers per hour.The approximately 4-ton and 12-meter-long rocket piece, which was left free in orbit after completing its mission, posed a risk of space debris, causing a crash that brought the issue back to the global agenda. Although the collision could not be observed directly, the traces of the massive explosion were detected from Earth.A team led by Carl Schmidt from Boston University recorded the crash traces clearly. The European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile confirmed the debris cloud formed by the sodium and lithium elements released into space immediately after the collision.According to the initial assessments of astronomers, the SpaceX rocket fell into a desolate area near the Einstein Crater on the moon.