Google reports: Impact Details Object: Spent Falcon 9 upper stage from a January 2025 launch Mass: ~4,000–4,500 kg (4–4.5 tons) Speed: ~8,700 km/h (5,400 mph) Expected Crater Size: 20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 feet) wide I’m wondering if we’ll see a meteor shower in the days/weeks afterwards? What about the existing missions on the moon? Bob Wilson
meh. The moon doesn't have much of an atmosphere but it DOES have gravity - so I'm thinking that it's not going to be like the Remulakian rescue vessel accidentally chipping off a massive piece of rock while extracting the Conehead family from Earth. Falcon's upper stage will come sauntering in at something like 2.5km/s - and that's not too shabby but it's at least an order of magnitude slower than the hunks and chunks that caused most of the other craters. Since lunar escape velocity is 2.38 km/s, and Elon's lunar litter might be going a little bit faster - could any ejecta actually escape? Nah. It will make yet another crater, but the old "what goes up" rule will apply here.
I imagine that some large chunks left at >2.38 km/s as impactor arrived at 2.41. Earth's gravity well will eventually capture some of those which seems a good thing. Interesting and unfortunate if other chunks find their ways to some of Earth's Lagrangian points. Those now proving useful for astronomy.
Source: ‘Spectral lines’ and a giant plume: what science saw when the SpaceX rocket hit the moon | The moon | The Guardian Nasa and its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter probe and South Korea’s Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter are planning to take images of the site after impact, which may show the wreckage of the rocket, but it could take days to receive that information. However, the manner in which the impact plume interacted with the sunlight allowed astronomers to glean some clues about its composition. The sodium gas in the spectra is believed to have originated from the lunar soil, while the traces of lithium may have come from the rocket stage itself, Schmidt said. Bob Wilson
