A South Korean spacecraft has beamed back the first images of the crater a wayward SpaceX rocket stage punched into the moon. The Falcon 9’s upper stage slammed into the lunar surface Wednesday, Aug. 5. South Korea’s Danuri craft reached the area shortly afterward and made several passes from orbit. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute put out the resulting frames Thursday. The pictures show a dark blotch where the booster struck, with dust and debris flung across the ground nearby. Officials at the Korean agency matched the new views against a NASA image of the same terrain taken Oct. 1, 2015. The stage flew on the mission that ferried two commercial landers moonward last year. Gravity and solar activity nudged the spent booster onto a collision path, SpaceX said. It struck at 5,400 mph. Musk’s company put Danuri in space to begin with, launching the orbiter in 2022 out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is due to pass over the new crater next week for a closer look at the damage.
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