4-ton, school-bus-size SpaceX rocket stage crashes into the Moon at 5,400 mph after drifting through space for months. Here’s what scientists hope to learn

A 4-ton piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had been drifting through space since early 2025 was expected to slam into the Moon early Wednesday, creating an unusual collision that could give scientists a closer look at what happens when space debris hits the lunar surface.

The school-bus-size rocket stage, left over from a mission carrying a Firefly Aerospace lunar lander, was expected to strike the Moon at about 2:35 a.m. ET (0635 GMT) at roughly 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 kph).