SpaceX rocket's impact crater on the moon spied by Korean lunar orbiter (photos)

韩国月球轨道飞行器发现 SpaceX 火箭在月球上的撞击坑（照片）

The final resting place of SpaceX's moon-smashing rocket has been found.

SpaceX 撞月火箭残骸的最终落点已找到。

The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, known as Danuri, has captured imagery of the crater blasted out by the Falcon 9 upper stage that slammed into the moon early on Wednesday morning (Aug. 5).

被称为“Danuri”的韩国探路者月球轨道飞行器拍摄到了于周三（8月5日）凌晨撞击月球的猎鹰9号上级撞击月球所炸出的的陨石坑的图像。

"Danuri began observations about 30 minutes before the collision and, through orbit control, passed over the impact site multiple times, conducting a total of 8 imaging sessions," officials with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said via X this morning (Aug. 6). "Through this observation, changes in the terrain around the impact site and traces of ejecta spread were confirmed."

韩国航空航天研究所（KARI）官员今天早上（8月6日）通过X表示：“Danuri在碰撞前约30分钟开始观测，并通过轨道控制多次飞越撞击地点，总共进行了8次成像。通过这次观测，我们确认了撞击点周围地形的变化和喷出物扩散的痕迹。”

"Danuri secured both pre-collision and immediate post-collision footage, enabling analysis of changes caused solely by the collision and providing important research data," they added in the X post, which shared several before-and-after images of the impact site.

他们在 X post 中补充道：“Danuri 获得了碰撞前和碰撞后的即时镜头，能够分析仅由碰撞引起的变化，并提供重要的研究数据。”该帖子分享了撞击发生前后现场的几张图像。

The Falcon 9 in question launched on Jan. 15, 2025, sending two private robotic moon landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience — to a high, moon-crossing Earth orbit. The duo then made their own way to the moon; Blue Ghost landed successfully on March 2 of that year, but Resilience crashed during its touchdown attempt.

涉事的猎鹰9号于2025年1月15日发射，将两个私人机器人登月器——萤火虫航空航天公司的“蓝色幽灵”和ispace的“弹性”——送入送入一条高度很高、与月球轨道相交的地球轨道。然后两台着陆器各自飞往月球；蓝色幽灵号于当年3月2日成功着陆，而弹性号在着陆尝试中坠毁。

The Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth shortly after liftoff for recovery and reuse, as such boosters commonly do. Falcon 9 upper stages, by contrast, are expendable. SpaceX usually disposes of them in Earth's atmosphere, but the upper stage on the Blue Ghost-Resilience mission used almost all of its fuel getting its payloads to their distant destination. So the 8,800-pound (4,000 kilograms) rocket body remained up there, orbiting Earth — until solar activity and gravitational forces pushed it on a collision course for the moon.

猎鹰9号的第一级在升空后不久便返回地球，以便回收复用——这类助推器通常都如此。相比之下，猎鹰9号的上级则是一次性的。SpaceX通常会让上级在地球大气层中销毁，但执行“蓝色幽灵—韧性”任务的那枚上级几乎耗尽了全部燃料，才把载荷送往遥远的目的地。于是这个重 8800 磅（4000 千克）的火箭体便滞留在地球轨道上——直到太阳活动与引力作用将其推上了一条撞向月球的轨道。

That collision occurred at 2:34 a.m. EDT (0634 GMT) on Wednesday, according to KARI officials — right in line with predictions. Scientists calculated some other parameters ahead of time as well. For example, the rocket body probably hit the moon at about 5,400 mph (8,690 kph), gouging out a crater up to 89 feet (27 meters) wide.

KARI 官员称，碰撞发生在美国东部时间周三凌晨 2:34（格林尼治标准时间 0634），与预测完全一致。科学家们还提前计算了一些其他参数。例如，火箭体可能以大约5400英里/小时（8690公里/小时）的速度撞击月球，撞出一个宽达89英尺（27米）的陨石坑。

The new observations by Danuri, as well as future work by other lunar probes, will help verify such predictions.

Danuri的此次新观测，以及其他月球探测器今后的工作，将有助于验证此类预测。

"The observation data secured by Danuri will be linked with follow-up observations from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and utilized in international collaborative research," KARI officials said in the X post.

KARI 官员在 X post 中表示：“Danuri 获得的观测数据将与 NASA 月球勘测轨道飞行器 (LRO) 的后续观测相衔接，并用于国际联合研究。”

It may be that some ground-based telescopes caught the impact as well. Astronomers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain believe they captured a video of ejected material blasting off of the lunar surface around the predicted time of impact:

可能还有一些地面望远镜也捕捉到了这次撞击。西班牙安达卢西亚天体物理研究所的天文学家表示，他们拍到了在预测撞击时刻前后从月表喷发而出的抛射物质的视频：

The Falcon 9 upper stage wasn't the first rocket body to slam into the moon. The third stage of a Chinese Long March 3C crashed into the lunar surface on March 4, 2022, for example. And the third stage of NASA's Saturn V rocket gouged out craters during multiple Apollo moon missions.

猎鹰9号上级并不是第一个撞击月球的火箭体。例如，中国长征三号丙第三级于2022年3月4日坠毁在月球表面。NASA土星五号火箭的第三级也在多次阿波罗登月任务中撞出了陨石坑。

Danuri is South Korea's first lunar probe. The spacecraft launched on Aug. 4, 2022 atop a Falcon 9 and began circling the moon four months later. It carries six payloads, five of them provided by Korean universities and research organizations. The sixth is a NASA instrument called ShadowCam, which hunts for signs of water ice in permanently shadowed regions at the lunar poles.

Danuri是韩国首个月球探测器。该航天器于2022年8月4日搭载猎鹰9号发射升空，四个月后开始绕月球运行。它搭载了六台有效载荷，其中五台由韩国高校和研究机构提供，第六台是 NASA一台名为ShadowCam的仪器，用于在月球两极永久阴影区中寻找水冰的踪迹。