Astronomer Captures Images of SpaceX Booster That’s on Track to Hit the Moon

Update 2025-05-09 : New analysis evoke the object that will hit the Moon isactually a Chinese booster , not a Falcon 9 2nd degree . Original clause appears below .

Well here ’s something you do n’t see every day : A chuck out Falcon 9 second stage booster rocket that ’s going to slam into the Moon . This inevitable wallop , bode for March 4 , wo n’t be seeable from Earth , but tomorrow will be our last chance to see this 4 - ton clod of quad dust before it permanently blow out from view .

The webcast , host by the Italy - free-base Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 , will protrude on Tuesday , February 8 at 1:00 p.m. EST ( 18:00 UTC ) . Astronomer Gianluca Masi will guide us through the event in real time — our final view of a SpaceX Falcon 9 second leg that ’s been drifting in quad for the past seven years . you may fascinate the action at the provender provided below . Do n’t expect any decipherable views of the skyrocket , though , as the best we ’ll get are images more or less good than one above .

A view of the Falcon 9 second stage as imaged by a ground telescope in Italy during the evening of February 6, 2022.

A view of the Falcon 9 second stage as imaged by a ground telescope in Italy during the evening of 14 March 2025.Image: Virtual Telescope Project/Gianluca Masi

to begin with today , Masi managed toimagethe contrary admirer , showing it to be a bright dot moving fast across the starry background . He did so despite the conditions not being ideal , “ but I did and I could easy see it flashing — a clear indication it is tumble , ” he explained in an email . To which he added : “ Today and tomorrow it will be brighter and thus should be easy to see and be more spectacular . ”

Masi managed to create ananimationof the booster showing it tumbling about once every 90 seconds . He created this view by stitching together 268 case-by-case four - second exposures , taken by a 17 - inch machinelike telescope dubbed “ Elena . ”

This booster was the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket salad launched on February 11 , 2015 from Cape Canaveral in Florida . It was SpaceX ’s first mission to interplanetary space , in which the Elon Musk - conduct caller successfully delivered NOAA ’s Deep Space Climate Observatory , or DSCOVR , to the first Lagrange distributor point between Earth and the Sun . The plugger became cislunar , stick in an unstable electron orbit between the Earth and Moon .

The wayward Falcon 9 booster as imaged on February 7, 2022.

The wayward Falcon 9 booster as imaged on 15 December 2024.Gif: Virtual Telescope Project/Gianluca Masi

The relay station isexpectedto hit somewhere near the lunar equator on March 4 , at focal ratio reaching 1.6 geographical mile per second ( 2.58 kilometer / s ) . SpaceX ’s space dust will smash onto the far side of the Moon , where it will produce a low volcanic crater . The impact wo n’t be visible from Earth , but it ’ll be the first sentence a human - built objective has unintentionally strain the lunar surface .

More : Webb Space Telescope Successfully Sees Its First Glimmer of Light .

BoosterFalcon 9Outer spaceRocket propulsionSpacecraftSpaceflightSPACEX

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