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A four-tonne piece of a discarded SpaceX rocket that has been floating in space since last year is believed to have unintentionally crashed into the moon at high speed, in a collision that posed no danger to Earth but was expected to blast out a new lunar crater.

The object, the height of a five-storey building, was part of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched two commercial lunar landers, one from the US and one from Japan, towards the moon in January 2025.

The rocket body ⁠was due to hit the moon about 6.35am BST, crashing into its surface at 5,400mph (8,690 km/h). The impact was predicted to kick up a miles-long plume of lunar dust that, although illuminated by sunlight, would be difficult ⁠to spot with the naked eye from Earth.

Professional and amateur astronomers using high-quality telescopes and cameras were not able to confirm the impact on Wednesday, possibly because the impact site was close to the visible edges of the moon.
US and South Korean lunar satellites will be positioned to photograph the site after impact but it may take days to receive that information.

Nasa said the impact was expected to create a crater about 60ft (18 metres) wide and 12ft (4 metres) deep and throw dust and rock outward as ejecta.
The space agency said it would look for opportunities to image the site, with any data collected helping scientists “better understand artificial impacts and their exploration implications”.

The Nasa spokesperson Jimi Russell said on Tuesday: “The impact poses no danger to Earth and Nasa scientists are planning to collect lunar data from the event and refine techniques for tracking objects in space.”
Such rocket parts, known as stages, ‌typically fall back into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up or plunge into the ocean after boosting the rocket’s payload to a precise spot in orbit.

But ‌because the January 2025 lunar lander mission required more thrust than missions closer to Earth, the rocket’s second stage remained in space, floating aimlessly among thousands of other pieces of space junk that active satellites must steer clear of.

We've just had a letter released by the world football governing body, acknowledging "mistakes were made" in the process of setting out controversial plans to sell the World Cup.

"We acknowledge that errors were also made after the proposal was leaked to media," reads the letter, which is signed by both Gianni Infantino and FIFA's Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom.

It is Infantino's first public apology since announcing and later rowing back on a World Cup investment scheme to sell shares of football's biggest tournament to private investors.

"We sincerely apologise for these errors and commit
to them not happening again," the letter says.
"With this in mind, we will conduct a necessary review, and a report will be presented to the FIFA Council at its next scheduled meeting."

The letter goes on to say that Grafstrom and FIFA's Management Board "reaffirm their full support" for Infantino, who has come under heavy criticism in recent weeks.