NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captures a series of images of a newly formed crater on the Moon in mid-August. The images are taken between Aug. 11 and Aug. 12 as the mission identifies and studies the fresh impact feature.
NASA reports that the crater forms on Aug. 5 after a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacts the lunar surface. The upper stage is associated with SpaceX’s Jan. 2025 launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission. Observations from LRO allow scientists to document the crater’s location and provide new details about the impact.
Both outlets describe the same timeline—Aug. 5 crater formation followed by LRO imaging on Aug. 11–12—and the same cause linked to a Falcon 9 upper-stage impact tied to the January 2025 mission. The coverage focuses on the identification and imaging of the crater rather than on additional technical or interpretive findings beyond these fundamentals.
