Before-and-after NASA images show crater carved by SpaceX rocket that slammed into the moon

NY Post ^ | 8/19/26 | Associated Press

[Libloather]

A NASA spacecraft circling the moon is providing the sharpest views yet of the crater carved by a crashing SpaceX rocket.

The space agency released before-and-after photos of the impact area on Tuesday.

The Falcon rocket’s upper stage plowed into the moon at 5,400 mph on Aug. 5 after drifting through space for more than a year.

It launched a pair of private moon landers with experiments and even a tiny rover in 2025 as part of NASA’s push to commercialize lunar exploration.

Based on these new photos by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the fresh crater appears to be 60 feet across and less than 10 feet deep, according to scientists.

Dark and bright streaks are clearly visible emanating like butterfly wings from the crater.

The darker lines represent excavated material that was close to the surface and shaped by eons of solar wind, cosmic rays and micrometeorite strikes.

The brighter rays indicate fresh rocks and dirt that were hurled from farther down.

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TOPICS: Local News; Outdoors; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: crater; moon; nasa; rocket; spacex

[Libloather]

Buffing is the only answer.

[Kudsman]

Poor moon, just sitting there waiting to take shots!

[Larry Lucido]

"Buffing is the only answer."

[Pontiac]

We might need a little body filler on this one.

[Ken Regis]

Environmentalist are likely to complain.

[FreedomPoster]

True. It’s all they know how to do!

[Ken H]

[Pontiac]

I wonder if the Moon rang from this strike.

When NASA deliberately crashed Apollo hardware into the Moon, the seismometers left behind recorded vibrations for nearly an hour — as if the Moon itself were ringing like a bell

[KingLudd]

It looks like my wife took those photos with a disposable camera. For all the money we give NASA, these are the best they can do?

[trebb]

So - did the moon ring like a bell?

[minnesota_bound]

Elon Musk will have to repair this.
He damaged the moon...

[minnesota_bound]

That rocket hit the Vistor center of Meteor Crater...

[Jan_Sobieski]

Why crash a rocket 🚀 into the moon when we could just land like in 1969? Has it somehow become more difficult?

[sten]

one reason would be to test to see what kind of crater it would create.

this would be especially useful if you’re interested in building a base on a remote moon or planet... building underground would be much preferred over sitting on the surface... with no atmosphere, meteorites can ruin your day.

[bobrlbob]

It’s funny that we can find a creator but we can’t find Apollo capsules or the rovers that we’re left up there.

[bobbo666]

The piccies are from a satellite circling the moon — primarily there to do a detailed map. The best that any camera can do is resolve something the size of a piece of luggage. There is no technology anywhere that can do better than that.

A single crater puts the lie to the crate on the dark side that supposedly came from another crash a while ago. But, it caused two craters. This means that the Chinese stage that did the damage had two solid bodies — rocket nozzles on one end and something else on the other — a nuke?

[Fledermaus]

What’s one more hole?

[BFW]

Yeah where’s the little doom troll greta? She must be to busy enabling murdering muslem terrorists...

[muir_redwoods]

Wasnt it an accidental impact by a piece of identifiable space junk?