A Rocket Just Hit the Moon — And Telescopes Caught It

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Anna: A 4 ton piece of rocket has just

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carved a fresh crater into the Moon. And for

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once we had the telescopes pointed right at

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it.

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Avery: Sodium and lithium glowing in the plume. A

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spacewalk happening as we speak, and a star

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that died in a way nobody expected.

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Anna: Good day and welcome to Astronomy Daily.

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I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm avery. It's Thursday the 6th of

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August, 2026, and there is a lot of

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sky to get through.

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Anna: We lead on the Moon, we go live to the space

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station, we witness a supernova at

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first light and we meet the crew heading up

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next month. Then we point you at the sky

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north and south for what is shaping up to be

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the biggest week of the year.

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Avery: Let's get into it.

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Yesterday morning at about half past six

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Universal Time, a spent SpaceX Falcon

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9 upper stage, catalog number

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2025

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010D, slammed into the

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far western edge of the Moon, close to

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Einstein Crater, at somewhere near five and a

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half thousand kilometers an hour.

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Anna: And this is the one we flagged for you

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yesterday and said, come back tomorrow. Well,

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it's confirmed. It hit almost

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exactly where and when the independent

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tracker Bill Gray of Project

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Avery: Pluto said it would, which is the first

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remarkable thing. This wasn't a planned

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impact. Nobody steered it in. A, uh, private

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citizen with orbital mechanics software

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called the shot to within a minute or two

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days ahead, though, where

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Anna: did this thing come from? Rewind to January

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2025. A Falcon 9 lifts

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off carrying two commercial moon landers.

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Firefly's Blue Ghost, which went on to make

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the first fully successful commercial soft

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landing that March and ispace's

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resilience land.

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Avery: The upper stage does its job, flings both

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landers onto a lunar trajectory, and then

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it's just left there, out of fuel,

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adrift, and that messy gravitational

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neighborhood between the Earth and the Moon.

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Anna: And here's the physics that traps it, because

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it surprised me. For a normal mission close

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to Earth, you nudge the stage down and it

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burns up in the atmosphere. Cheap, tidy.

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But a stage that's already been flung toward

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the Moon would need almost as much fuel to

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come home safely as it took took to get out

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there in the first place.

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Avery: And that feel is long gone. So it

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drifts for 18 months until a

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mixture of solar activity and plain old

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gravity bends its path just enough to put

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it on a collision course. Now, normally,

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that's the end of the story. A dead rocket

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hits the Moon, nobody sees it, we all move

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on. But this time, astronomers turned

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it into an experiment.

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Anna: This is the part I love. The European

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Southern Observatory pointed Its Very Large

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Telescope in Chile at the impact site. And it

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caught the flash chemically in the plume

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thrown up by the collision. The telescope

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detected glowing sodium and lithium for

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something like five to ten minutes afterward.

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Avery: And the two elements tell two different

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stories. The sodium almost certainly came

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from the lunar soil, itself vaporized on

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impact, but the lithium, that most likely

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came from the rocket.

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Anna: So the telescope is effectively reading the

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wreck's chemistry from 400,000

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kilometers away. You're watching a rocket

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cremate itself into the moon and picking out

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the ingredients in the smoke.

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Avery: And then NASA steps in for the long game.

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Their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had

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already photographed this patch of ground

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before the impact. A clean before

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shot.

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Anna: And over the coming weeks, it'll go back and

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photograph the fresh crater, maybe 20

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meters across for the after.

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Avery: Which gives scientists something they almost

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never get. A known object of known

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mass hitting at known speed in

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known spot with pictures of the ground before

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and after.

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Anna: And that matters well beyond this one rock.

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Engineers have computer models that predict

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how a hollow human made object deforms

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the ground when it hits. Up to now, those

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models have been mostly untested against a

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real measured impact.

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Avery: This is the calibration. Every future lunar

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lander team, NASA's Artemis crews, the

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commercial landers, they all need to know how

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the surface behaves and how far debris flies

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to work out safe landing margins. This crater

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helps write those numbers down.

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Anna: There's a bigger conversation underneath it

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too, isn't there? The space junk. One this

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was accidental, harmless in the sense that

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nobody was hurt and no satellites were

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threatened. But it's a reminder that we are

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now leaving hardware scattered through the

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whole Earth Moon system.

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Avery: It even nudges into space law and believe it

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or not, space archaeology, how we treat what

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we leave up there. But for today, the

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headline is the good news version. A piece of

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junk became a free science experiment and the

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observatories were ready.

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Anna: A rocket that delivered two landers to the

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moon 18 months ago finally arrived itself

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the hard way, right on schedule,

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Avery: from the moon back to low Earth orbit.

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Because as we speak, two astronauts are

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outside the International Space Station.

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Anna: This is US Spacewalk 96,

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NASA's Jessica Mair, the station commander,

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and Anil Menon went out the hatch this

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morning around 8:35 Eastern in the United

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States for a spacewalk expected to run about

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six and a half hours, streaming live on NASA

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as we go to air.

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Avery: And the job is genuinely important, if not

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glamorous. They're modifying one of the

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station's power channels so it can accept A

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new rollout solar array later this year,

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which is the station investing in itself for

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its final act. The ISS is now slated for

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a controlled D orbit around 2030. And

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these power upgrades keep it healthy and

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productive right to the end.

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Anna: Now, the human story here is lovely for Anil

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Menon. This is his very first spacewalk, and

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Avery: his path here is remarkable. He's a

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physician, an emergency medicine doctor who

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was a first responder after the earthquakes

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in Haiti and in Nepal. He was also

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SpaceX's very first flight surgeon before he

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joined NASA's astronaut class. The person who

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signed off that crews were medically fit to

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fly, and he

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Anna: only arrived at the station a few weeks ago

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on a Soyuz in mid July. And there's a

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nice family footnote. His wife, Anna Menon,

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flew on the Polaris dawn mission back in

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2024, the flight that carried out the first

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commercial spacewalk.

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Avery: So spaceflight really is the family business.

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We'll keep an eye on how the EVA wraps up.

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And there are two more of these spacewalks

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coming this month on the 13th and the 25th.

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Now to something that only happens if you're

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very quick and a little lucky. Astronomers

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have caught a massive star at the very first

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instant of its death.

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Anna: This dropped today, two research teams

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publishing together. And it starts back in

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March, when China's Einstein probe and X ray

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telescope spotted a brief flash of soft X

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rays from a galaxy about 500 million light

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years away.

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Avery: Within the hour, telescopes on the ground

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swung around to look and watch watched a

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supernova rapidly brighten. It's now

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cataloged as SN

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M2026GZF.

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Anna: And that opening X ray flash has a name,

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the Shock Breakout. Picture the core

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of a giant star collapsing. That

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launches a shock wave that tears outward

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through the star. And the breakout is the

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instant that wave finally bursts through the

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surface. First light the starting gun,

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and it's

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Avery: fiendishly hard to catch. It lasts seconds to

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hours. And in 20 years, astronomers have only

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clearly bagged a couple in X rays. So

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having two teams capture this one from the

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first flash onward is a real event.

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Anna: But here's the twist, and it's a good one.

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This was a particular kind of supernova, A,

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uh, broad, lined type 1C. That

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family usually comes with fireworks. Narrow

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jets of material moving near the speed of

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light and often a, uh, gamma ray burst. The

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brightest explosions in the universe.

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Avery: This one had none of that. No gamma ray

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burst, no lasting jet, and the faintest

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opening X ray flash ever tied to this type.

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Even though the explosion itself was

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Powerful,

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Anna: which makes it uh, a kind of missing link. An

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explosion that looks like the jet and gamma

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ray crowd in visible light but behaves like a

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quieter cousin at higher energies. It hints

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there's more than one way for a massive star

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to go.

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Avery: And a nice detail for the telescope nerds

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among us. The follow up leaned on the big US

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survey facilities, including the brand new

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Vera Rubin Observatory. Exactly the kind

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of fast all sky work these observatories

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were built for.

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Anna: For our next story, let's head Back to the

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ISS. Let's meet the crew heading up next.

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NASA and SpaceX are now targeting 12

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September for Crew 13 flying up on

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the Dragon capsule named Grace or

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aboard

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Avery: Commander Jessica Watkins of NASA, a uh,

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geologist. And this is a milestone for her.

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She becomes the first NASA astronaut to fly

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on Dragon twice alongside her

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pilot

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Anna: Luke Delaney, a uh, former naval aviator

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and this will be his first trip to space.

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Then Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space

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Agency, a fighter pilot, and Sergey

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Tetteryatnikov of Roscosmos, a former

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submariner, both also flying for the very

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first time.

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Avery: It's a 180 day stay and it's worth

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noting the mission was actually moved earlier

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from November into September as NASA

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pushes to lift its launch cadence across the

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board.

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Anna: And for our North American listeners, one

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very on brand detail from the briefing. When

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the crew rolls out to the pad, they'll be

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riding in cybertrucks only

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Avery: in this era of spaceflight. We'll bring you

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the launch when it's locked.

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And that brings us to the sky because next

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Wednesday 12 August is the biggest, biggest

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sky watching day of the year. And it deserves

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a proper look for both halves of the planet.

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Anna: Two headline events land almost

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first, a uh, total solar eclipse. The moon's

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shadow sweeps down over the Arctic, across

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eastern Greenland and western Iceland and

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then across northern Spain and a corner of

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Portugal. That narrow path of totality is

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the only place the sun goes fully dark, up to

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2 minutes and 18 seconds of it. It's the

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first total eclipse over mainland Europe

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since 1999.

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Avery: Now for our audience in North America, you

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are not in the path of totality but much of

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the north gets ah, a partial eclipse. And

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here are your details. It runs across the

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afternoon of the 12th. The deepest bite in

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the lower 48 is up in northern Maine, around

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29% of the sun covered near Presque Isle

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just after 2pm Eastern New York sees

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Anna: a uh, modest partial, roughly 9%

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starting near 1:07 in the afternoon Eastern

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Time. Boston about 16%

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Bangor, around 24%. Head into

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Canada and it grows Montreal near

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18%, and St. John's in Newfoundland,

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over half the sun covered. West of the Great

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Lakes, though Chicago and beyond, it fades

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to essentially nothing.

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Avery: And, um, if you're not in the partial zone at

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all, NASA streams the whole thing live from

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1:15pm Eastern.

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Anna: And this is the line we never cut. A partial

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eclipse is never safe to look at with the

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naked eye. You must use certified eclipse

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glasses or a safe solar filter that meets the

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ISO 123122

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standard. Every moment the sun is even partly

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uncovered, a, um, 99% covered sun

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can still burn your eyes. Only inside the

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path of totality. And only during those brief

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seconds of total darkness can you look

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unaided.

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Avery: The second headline is a gift to the whole

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planet. Though it leans north, the Perseid

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meteor shower peaks the Same night, the 12th

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into the 13th. And this year it peaks under a

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new moon. No moonlight to wash them out.

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Anna: Dark, perfect skies for the northern

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hemisphere. That could mean up to 100 meteors

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an hour from a dark site. Now, honestly,

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southern friends, the Perseids are a northern

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shower. The point they radiate from barely

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clears our horizon, so we see very few.

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I won't oversell it.

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Avery: So what does the southern hemisphere get?

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Quite a lot, actually. Look before dawn and

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there's a planet parade strung along the sky.

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Saturn is superb right now, riding high and

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heading towards opposition. Mars is up there

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too, with Mercury low and Uranus and Neptune

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for those with binoculars and a telescope.

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Anna: And Venus is the jewel of the evening,

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brilliant in the western twilight after

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sunset and actually better placed for us in

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the south than for far northern viewers.

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Add the winter Milky Way overhead here in

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Australia, Scorpius and Sagittarius

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blazing, and it's a glorious few weeks of

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stargazing

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Avery: and one to circle for the Americas,

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especially north and south. On

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28 August, a deep partial lunar

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eclipse with 96% of the moon sliding

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into Earth's shadow. Very nearly a total

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blood moon. And it favors the whole of the

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Americas.

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Anna: So wherever you are, get outside this week.

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And that's the show for today. A rocket

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arrived at the moon, a star showed us its

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first light, and there are astronauts outside

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the station as you listen.

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Avery: Full links and sources are in your show notes

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and over at astronomydaily IO and you

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can find us anywhere you get your podcasts

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and on socials. Astrodaily Pod,

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we're back tomorrow.

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Anna: Until then, from Anna and Avery

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and clear, uh, skies.