CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — 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 (8,700 kph) 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 (18 metres) across and less than 10 feet (3 metres) 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. The spacecraft photographed the crater a week after the collision from 60 miles (96 kilometres) up, while zooming along at one mile per second. Flight controllers had to tilt the spacecraft so its cameras pointed toward the impact scene. The orbiter completes a lunar polar orbit every two hours, as the moon rotates beneath. It took six days before the crash scene came into view. South Korea’s Danuri spacecraft was first on the scene to beam back photos. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been orbiting the moon since 2009, serving as NASA’s up-close eyes as the space agency works to return astronauts to the lunar surface. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press
