A NASA spacecraft orbiting the Moon has captured images of a crater formed when a SpaceX rocket crashed into the lunar surface, reports infohub.kz.
In early August, it was reported that a rocket from Elon Musk's company, traveling at 8,700 km/h, struck the Moon. NASA has confirmed that its orbiter was able to photograph the impact crater left by the rocket's fall.
NASA has released new images of the crash site, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on August 11 and 12. The before-and-after images show a bright indentation on the Moon's cratered surface.
According to NASA, the orbiter took six days to fly over the impact site. Engineers had to tilt the spacecraft so that its cameras were pointed at the crater during the flyby. The new photos show the crater is about 18 meters in diameter. Based on the shadow length, scientists estimate its depth at less than three meters.
The images also show light and dark streaks radiating from the crater. The dark rays are dust and rocks thrown up from depth during the impact. The bright streaks near the rim are from fresher material ejected during the collision.
The Falcon 9 rocket's fall was only the second known instance of a rocket unintentionally hitting the Moon. Over its history, the Moon has endured many impacts from asteroids and other space objects, but an uncontrolled collision by a man-made object is an extremely rare event.