Piece of SpaceX rocket believed to have crashed into moon

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lunar lander launches from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan 15, 2025. The second stage of the rocket is believed to have crashed into the moon on Aug 5, 2026. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year was expected to have smashed into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning, though the impact was unlikely to be confirmed for at least several hours.

The school-bus-sized object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a ​lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace toward the moon ⁠in January 2025.