A four-tonne piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to unintentionally crash into the moon on Wednesday at 5,400mph, creating a new crater about 60ft wide and 12ft deep.
The rocket’s second stage, which launched a lunar lander in January 2025, has been floating in space since then. It will hit Einstein crater on the moon’s western limb at about 06:35am GMT, kicking up a plume of lunar dust.
NASA said the impact poses no danger to Earth but will provide scientific data to help understand artificial impacts and refine space tracking techniques.
The rocket piece remained in space because the lunar mission required more thrust than typical launches, preventing it from falling back to Earth. Astronomers determined its lunar trajectory earlier this year.
Space junk impacts on the moon are rare. A Chinese rocket stage crashed there in 2022, and NASA intentionally crashed one in 2009 for research purposes.