Home > Ephemeris Program, Space exploration, The Moon > Ephemeris: 08/28/2026 – Crater found from Falcon 9 impact on the Moon

Ephemeris: 08/28/2026 – Crater found from Falcon 9 impact on the Moon

August 28, 2026 Leave a comment Go to comments

This is Ephemeris for Friday, August 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 8:26, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:01. The Moon, which was full just after midnight this morning during ther lunar eclipse, will rise at 8:36 this evening.

SpaceX made a big splash on the moon a couple of weeks ago when the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that delivered two lunar landers to the moon last year, itself crashed into the moon. This, plus detection of the flashes of several meteoroid strikes on the moon by the Artemis 2 crew, suggested to some scientists that lunar colonization might be a very risky thing. On the moon when something hits it, material flies off in all directions. But without an atmosphere to slow these particles down they fly a long way and will crash back onto the moon at the same velocity they were ejected with. The crash dug a crater 60 feet (18 meters) across and 10 feet (3 meters) deep.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

An animated GIF image of an area on the moon a quarter mile on a side, showing before and after photos of the area the Falcon 9 seccond stage crashed, and the crater it made. Photos were taken from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
An animated GIF image of an area on the moon a quarter mile on a side, showing before and after photos of the area the Falcon 9 seccond stage crashed, and the crater it made. Photos were taken from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The before photo apparently was taken at a higher sun angle than the after photo. Image Credit: NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines.
Categories: Ephemeris Program, Space exploration, The Moon Tags: ,
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