"The collision is likely to leave a crater and it highlights the risk of space junk to the lunar surface at a moment when NASA and other national space agencies are pushing hard to return humans to the moon."
"The rocket originally launched in January 2025 and carried other private space companies' lunar landers: Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Japanese firm ispace's Hakuto-R."
"Gray first noticed the collision course last September, but he says that while calculating the effects of gravity from Earth, the sun and the moon was straightforward, there was another variable that made things more complicated."
A Falcon 9 rocket piece is on a collision course with the moon, expected to impact at 5,400 mph in August. This incident underscores the dangers of space debris as NASA and other agencies plan lunar missions. The rocket, launched in January 2025, was meant to burn up upon reentry but instead entered a long orbit. Independent astronomer Bill Gray calculated the impact timing, noting complications from solar radiation pressure affecting the rocket's trajectory.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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