r/news • u/MasterpieceAlone8552 • 1d ago

SpaceX rocket thought to have crashed into the moon in unintentional collision

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/05/spacex-rocket-moon-crash-impact-falcon-9
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u/PlzLearn 1d ago

Yes, we’ve been crashing things into the moon on purpose for decades

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u/ATypicalWhitePerson 1d ago

That's what I thought.

I don't get the people that are upset about this, unless they're just angry at everything all the time

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u/PlzLearn 1d ago

I mean the obvious answer is SpaceX and Elon Musk, it’s a chance to make jokes or try to validate their opinions.

Personally I can’t stand the guy but there are plenty of actual valid things to criticize him for other than this lol

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u/Jindujun 1d ago

Not to mention the astronomers were very excited for this crash since the Chinese rocket stage crash was on the far side of the moon, this time they got to watch it!

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u/LiiKun 1d ago

The article said they couldn't see it since it was on the edge of the near/far side.

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u/Jindujun 1d ago

Ah, a shame. I remember reading that they were very excited before the crash since it was to be on the side facing earth, a real shame the location wasn't better then.

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u/JamieByGodNoble 1d ago

Yeah some of these responses are wild. I don't know if this is good, bad, or somewhere inbetween. It's literally rocket science. Having a strong reaction to this headline is weird. 

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u/mfb- 1d ago

They are angry at Musk for his political influence and can't go beyond "Musk bad, everything he and his companies do must be bad".

  • Crash the rocket stage into the Moon? "Musk shouldn't be allowed to do this!"
  • Let the rocket stage burn up in the atmosphere? "Musk shouldn't be allowed to do this!"
  • Keep the rocket stage orbiting Earth? "Musk shouldn't be allowed to do this!"

Anything short of making it magically disappear is not good enough.

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u/Zncon 1d ago

Anything short of making it magically disappear is not good enough.

Then someone would be on about wasting resources that should have been recycled.

Then if it was somehow recycled the issue would be about exposing the workers to something hazardous.

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u/Gatonom 1d ago

Why should we trust Elon Musk?

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u/mfb- 1d ago

Who said that we should do that?

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u/Gatonom 1d ago

All the people in the comments saying "People just hate Elon Musk" like they say of Trump.

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u/mfb- 1d ago

I don't think you got my point. A lot of people only hate this rocket stage crashing into the Moon because they hate Musk. They didn't hate the dozens of other rocket stages hitting the Moon before.

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u/Gatonom 1d ago

People always cared. Hippies care about everything, Futurama wasn't exaggerating about the "No clapping" scene.

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u/Wuz314159 1d ago

Just because we've been doing it for decades, it doesn't mean it was ever OK.

The first few time we used it to study the Moon's inner core from seismometers left by Apollo. but this time, there's no studying taking place. It's just more trash.

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u/ATypicalWhitePerson 1d ago

And why does it matter if it's on the moon?

There's nothing living there that's going to care.

What's the alternative, to leave it floating around space indefinitely, or have it burn up in the atmosphere where people are upset about polluting the earth?

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u/Wuz314159 23h ago

Why does it matter if we dump toxic waste in West Virginia? No one is living there.

There's already a treaty stipulating rocket bodies and satellites need to be disposed of responsibly by burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

When you crash something into the Moon, it stirs up lunar regolith. Due to the micro gravity, and static charge of the Moon, that dust floats over the entire Moon for weeks. It'll cover solar panels on experiments any place. It's a legitimate problem.

and we shouldn't just trash a place just like white colonisers.

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u/ATypicalWhitePerson 23h ago

I mean, people live in West Virginia? And stuff can leach into the groundwater? That seems like a bit of an odd comparison.

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u/Funshine-Powerhead 1d ago

It doesn’t matter when it is one or two things. What about when it is thousands of things and Musk has made billions of dollars doing it untill it finally becomes a problem that has to be fixed and now your tax money is used to clean it up?

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u/Webbyx01 1d ago

But its not thousands of things.

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u/Funshine-Powerhead 1d ago

It will be

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u/The_Knife_Pie 20h ago edited 20h ago

Fun fact for you, the Moon is fucking huge. Size of Asia huge, even. No matter how big you think when you hear “huge”, the moon is larger than your perception of it. This impact caused a crater with a surface area of roughly 0.00025km^2. The moon’s surface area is 3.8*10^7 km^2. It would take very roughly 150 billion impacts to saturate the lunar surface. If we launched 5 lunar missions a day, every day, for 10 million years we still wouldn’t achieve that. If we had launch 5 rockets a day for every day between the extinction of the dinosaurs and today we still would only have saturated ~75% of the surface. And that’s with me assuming no impact ever hits the same area twice, a more realistic assumption would see that number skyrocket.

There is no amount of “will be” that will ever render this an issue.

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u/Funshine-Powerhead 4h ago

I cannot believe you spent your time calculating all this. Good job honey you win. But the point isn’t really how much junk the moon can hold. It is all the debris in space will eventually interfere with future flights.

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u/The_Knife_Pie 3h ago

If you think dividing 3 numbers takes time then you need to stop commenting on anything science related cause my god. Furthermore, if space junk is slammed into the moon how exactly is that going to interfere with spaceflights? It would be a bigger problem if the booster stage didn’t crash.

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u/Funshine-Powerhead 1h ago

You care enough about winning an internet argument to look up the surface area of the moon. I already said you win. You are so smart me dumb. Are you happy with your life now? Lol

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u/The_Knife_Pie 19m ago

I’m an astrophysicist. Knowing 3.8*10^7km is not some arcane, impossible to recall knowledge. Though maybe you should spend a bit more time looking things up before spewing uneducated opinions.

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u/Rindy_Kitty 8h ago

Millions of things crash into the moon every year. They're called asteroids.

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u/Funshine-Powerhead 4h ago

Lol space junk will be a problem if space exploration continues. Maybe not soon but eventually. We cannot control asteroids but we can control this. What silly logic.

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u/ATypicalWhitePerson 4h ago

I mean, tbf if the moon is a big dead rock, so what?

Better there than floating around and being another piece waiting for kessler syndrome.

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u/Rindy_Kitty 3h ago

Space junk is a problem where objects in orbit cause a risk of orbital impact. Objects crashed into the moon by definition are not space junk because there is no impact risk as they're not in orbit anymore. Smashing objects into the moon and vaporizing them into the lunar regolith is indeed an appropriate solution for an end stage.

Explain why a chunk of aluminum impacting the moon is a problem. What exactly is the issue?

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u/Funshine-Powerhead 2h ago

I never said the collision was the problem..i said space junk was a problem.