Between 11 and 12 August, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured a series of images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on 5 August, when the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 impacted the surface following the January 2025 launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission.
To capture images of the impact, engineers tilted the spacecraft so that its cameras pointed towards the crater each time the LRO passed approximately 60 miles above the Moon, travelling at 1 mile per second. The orbiter circles the Moon from pole to pole every two hours, whilst the Moon slowly rotates beneath it. To photograph a specific location, the spacecraft must wait until that location comes into view, which took six days in this case.
Getting the right angle was only half the challenge; timing also had to be precise. If the camera captured the image even 10 seconds too early or too late, the target shifted 10 miles from centre.
Because of the variety of viewing angles, scientists were able to see the crater under multiple lighting conditions that revealed unique features. In images where the crater rim stood out, scientists measured its width at 60 feet. Scientists also determined that the crater is less than 10 feet deep based on the length of its shadow. To capture these details, the LRO used its Narrow Angle Camera, which can detect features as small as 3 feet wide.
The images show bright and dark rays extending from the crater. The darker streaks are composed of dust and surface rocks altered over time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays and micrometeorite impacts. This weathered material was excavated by the collision from 1.5 feet within the lunar surface. The brighter streaks near the crater rim are made of fresh material excavated from deeper underground.
Finding the impact site required global coordination between experts and amateurs. Independent astronomers first identified the rocket's trajectory using publicly available data. NASA's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies, which tracks natural objects that could pose hazards to Earth in the agency's Planetary Defence programme, used this opportunity to test and validate tools and techniques for predicting impacts.
Based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California, the centre incrementally refined the trajectory until it identified the impact location, which it provided to South Korea for the team of the Korea Lunar Orbiter Pathfinder (Danuri). The team used the high-resolution LUTI camera on Danuri just hours later to capture images of the crater, finding that the prediction was accurate to approximately 0.6 miles.
After capturing images of the crater, the Danuri mission sent coordinates to NASA's LRO team to help refine their follow-up imaging sequence. By comparing their new images of the crater with pre-impact images, the LRO team updated the coordinates of the crater's centre: 19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 metres elevation.
