On August 5, 2026, at 06:34:32 UTC, the derelict upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 - a 5-story, roughly 4-ton piece of dead hardware - will strike the Moon's near side at 5,400 miles per hour near the crater Einstein, with the energy of about 3 tons of TNT.
The collision was predicted 11 months in advance, to the half-second, by a single contract astronomer - and it is the 1st predicted lunar impact in history to hit the side of the Moon that telescopes on Earth can actually see.
Roughly 800,000 pounds of lunar rock and dust will be blasted outward with no atmosphere to stop a single grain.
The open question dividing scientists this week:
Will the dust cloud rise high enough off the Moon's edge
for anyone on Earth to see it?
The answer hinges on one number nobody will know until the moment it happens.
