In the early hours of Wednesday morning, astronomers around the world fixed their gaze on the Moon. They were hoping to see a flash of light, a puff of moondust, and a crater left behind by a SpaceX rocket set to crash-land on the lunar surface. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that they saw much, but this Korean spacecraft sure did. On Thursday, the Korean AeroSpace Agency shared the first images of the hole the wayward Falcon 9 upper stage punched into the Moon. KASA’s Danuri lunar orbiter took the photos as it made several passes over the impact site, snapping before and after shots. Using its Lunar Terrain Imager and its Wide-Angle Polarimetric Camera, the satellite captured a splotch of lunar terrain that appeared much darker after the impact with a bright spot in the middle, suggesting a new crater had formed. “This observation offers a valuable opportunity to conduct in-depth research on lunar surface changes and impact mechanisms,” KASA said in a statement translated by Google.
The rocket that never came home Coincidentally, the Danuri orbiter launched aboard a different Falcon 9 rocket exactly four years prior to capturing these new images. The spacecraft is KASA’s first lunar probe, designed to gather data and images of the Moon’s surface that will help scout locations for future landing missions.
