In the early hours of Wednesday, telescopes worldwide will aim to capture a rare event: an aging rocket crashing into the illuminated side of the moon. The rocket is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 that launched in January 2025, carrying the U.S’s Firefly Blue Ghost-1 and Japan’s ispace Hakuto-R Resilience lunar landers.
Independent astronomer Bill Gray, tracking the rocket since its launch, predicted a close encounter with the moon on August 5, 2026. Accounting for the sun’s gravitational influence, Gray refined the orbit data and determined it would be a direct impact.
Scheduled to hit the moon’s daylight side near the limb, this event follows previous human-made objects impacting the lunar surface, including Apollo upper stages and intentionally smashed items for various research purposes.
Astronomers are urging observatories and amateur stargazers to witness the event on August 5 at 2:34:32.9 a.m. ET, with the best visibility expected in central and eastern Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean, and parts of South America. The rocket, moving at 2.43 kilometers per second, is anticipated to eject debris into space, with over a million kilograms expected to fall back to the moon’s surface.
Observers are encouraged to capture the event’s plume or flash. Ben Fernando from the Los Alamos National Laboratory advises continuous imaging to catch the brief flash and expects the plume to last several minutes.
This impact event is crucial for understanding potential hazards posed by artificial impacts as more astronauts plan lunar missions. Monitoring objects like China’s Chang’e 3 rocket’s upper stage is essential to assess future collision risks between space debris and celestial bodies.