Here Are the First Images of the Crater Left on the Moon by SpaceX’s Rocket - WIRED

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) released the first images of a crater left on the moon by an impacting SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage, captured by its Danuri lunar orbiter, which flies about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface.
The photos compare the same lunar site in 2015 with images taken hours after the collision, showing scattered material and signs of a recent impact; astronomers had projected a crater dozens of feet wide and nearly 12 feet (3.6 meters) deep.
Additional confirmation came from the Very Large Telescope, where astronomers detected sodium and lithium rising from the lunar surface, verifying that the rocket fragment struck the moon.
Scientists predicted the timing and location of the impact well in advance, though NASA warned beforehand that weather and timing would make the moment of collision hard to observe.
The crater is relatively small against the vast lunar surface, which measures roughly 2,160 miles in diameter, and even higher-resolution NASA orbiter images expected in coming days are unlikely to offer a granular view.
The Falcon 9 fragment, launched in January 2025 to deliver lunar landers, spent more than a year in an unstable orbit as gravity from Earth, the moon, and the sun altered its trajectory before it crashed, an outcome SpaceX said differs from its usual controlled deorbits over the ocean.