Coverage spread: 2 sources — 1 left · 1 center
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- A SpaceX Falcon 9 second-stage booster, weighing about 8,800 pounds, will hit the moon around 2:35 a.m. ET Wednesday.
- The stage is expected to slam into the lunar surface at roughly 5,400 mph.
- NASA has confirmed the collision poses no danger to Earth.
- The impact will carve out a crater tens of feet wide, though exact size estimates vary slightly.
Where they differ
- The Hill keeps its report brief, sticking to timing, speed and crater size without background on the rocket’s mission history.
- CBS News traces the booster back to its January 2025 launch, which carried Firefly’s Blue Ghost-1 and Japan’s Hakuto-R lunar landers, giving readers mission context The Hill omits.
- CBS News quotes SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman directly and explains NASA’s plan to use the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for before-and-after imagery, details absent from The Hill’s account.
- Crater-size estimates differ: The Hill reports about 89 feet wide, while CBS News cites a NASA figure near 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep alongside a broader 65-100 foot, 16-foot-deep study estimate.
What’s happening and when
A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage booster is on track to hit the moon early Wednesday at about 2:35 a.m. ET. The stage, roughly 45 feet long and 12 feet wide and weighing about 8,800 pounds, launched on Jan. 15, 2025, carrying two lunar landers: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost-1 and Japan’s ispace Hakuto-R. Blue Ghost-1 landed successfully; Hakuto-R crashed. Once it released both spacecraft, the rocket stage itself stayed in space and, over time, drifted onto a collision course with the moon.
The mechanics of the impact
NASA and independent astronomers say the booster’s path was first spotted by astronomers using publicly available tracking data, and NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory later confirmed a 100% chance it will hit the lunar surface. The impact is expected near the moon’s Einstein and Bell craters, striking at roughly 5,400 mph. NASA and CBS News both note the crash poses no danger to Earth.
Estimates of the resulting crater vary slightly by source: The Hill cites a crater about 89 feet (27 meters) wide, while CBS News, citing NASA and a study from nearly two dozen scientists, describes a crater between 65 and 100 feet wide and about 16 feet deep — with NASA’s own estimate closer to 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep. CBS News adds that the force of impact is comparable to roughly 2.8 tons of TNT.
Why almost no one will actually see it happen
Despite the violence of the collision, CBS News reports that the impact will happen too fast to be visible to the naked eye, and even powerful telescopes are unlikely to catch it. That’s because the crash is occurring on the moon’s sunlit side, and researchers say no natural or artificial lunar impact flash has ever been observed in daylight conditions on the moon. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a small satellite that circles the moon, will take before-and-after images of the impact site, but those photos likely won’t be available for a week or two.
What SpaceX and NASA are saying
Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX’s director of NASA Science and Dragon Programs, said at a Monday news conference that the company followed proper procedures for disposing of the Falcon 9’s second stage after the January 2025 launch, but that a combination of solar activity and gravitational forces pushed the stage toward the moon. She described herself as “excited” to see what data comes out of the observation. NASA said it plans to use the event to gather lunar data and to refine methods for tracking objects in space, treating the incident as a research opportunity rather than a hazard.
How the coverage differs
The Hill’s account is brief, focused mainly on the timing, size, speed and crater dimensions of the impact, without addressing the rocket’s origin or NASA’s broader framing. CBS News offers a fuller account, tracing the rocket back to its January 2025 launch and the fates of the two landers it carried, quoting SpaceX’s Scheiman directly, and detailing NASA’s plans for post-impact observation via the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. CBS News also delves into the science of why the impact will be nearly impossible to observe directly — a detail absent from The Hill’s shorter piece — and cites a specific TNT-equivalent energy figure that The Hill does not mention. The two outlets’ crater-size figures differ slightly (89 feet per The Hill versus a 65–100 foot range, or NASA’s 60-foot estimate, per CBS News), reflecting different sourcing rather than a clear factual dispute.
Why it matters
Artificial objects hitting the moon are rare compared to natural meteoroid strikes, and this rocket stage is unusually massive, though it moves far slower than most natural impactors. NASA describes this as a chance to sharpen its ability to track derelict hardware in space and study impact effects on the lunar surface, at a time when both government agencies and private companies are launching more missions to the moon and leaving more equipment in cislunar space.
Sources
Featured photo: NASA via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)