--- title: "Guy With Huge Telescope Spots Tumbling SpaceX Rocket About to Crash Into Moon" description: "An aging SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon — and one space enthusiast has captured it on video." date: "2022-02-08" modified: "2022-02-14" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/telescope-spacex-rocket-moon-crash" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Moon" - "Space" - "SpaceX" tags: - "falcon rocket" - "SpaceX" - "telescopes" - "the digest" --- # Guy With Huge Telescope Spots Tumbling SpaceX Rocket About to Crash Into Moon ![An aging SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon — and one space enthusiast has captured it on video.]() *\Image: NASA/Futurism\* ## Chef's Kiss **Update:** *It was later found that while a derelict rocket was indeed headed for the Moon, it didn't belong to SpaceX — [read our update here]().* An aging SpaceX rocket is on a [collision course with the Moon]() — and one space enthusiast has captured it on video. Gianluca Masi, the Italian founder of the Virtual Telescope Project and proud owner of several high-powered telescopes, captured both video and a still photo of the nearly seven-year-old Falcon 9 rocket "[spinning fast]()" in the sky as it hurtles towards the Moon. In a post about the four-second video he captured with his 17-inch PlaneWave telescope, [nicknamed "Elena"]() after his mother, [Masi admitted]() that, due to light interference from the Moon, "grabbing \[the video\] was quite hard." In spite of its relatively low resolution, however, these images are stunning — and all the more so because they were captured by an amateur. "See how it blinks while tumbling!" Masi adorably exclaimed in a tweet featuring the video of the Falcon 9 in the night sky. https://twitter.com/VirtualTelescop/status/1490782845144637440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1490782845144637440%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.space.com%2Fspacex-discovr-satellite-virtual-telescope-project-images ## Bruh Moment Bill Gray, an independent orbital dynamics researcher who runs the near-Earth object tracking Project Pluto, discovered in January 2022 with his team that this Falcon 9 rocket booster [seems to be headed directly for the far side of the Moon]() by early March. This less-than-ideal outcome is likely a result of the rocket booster's age — it was launched in 2015 as a means to get the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate Observatory into orbit, and [as *Ars Technica* reports](), got locked into the gravitational no-man's-land between the Earth and our Moon. In an interview with *Ars* at the time of the discovery, Gray predicted that the old rocket, which weighs about four metric tons and will hit the Moon at about 1.6 miles per second, will leave "a *very* fresh impact crater" if researchers manage to find it. This will provide interesting opportunities for study, he added, though it's obviously not an outcome anyone would prefer. As the Falcon 9 spins ever-closer to the moon, we on Earth are getting the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch a Moon impact in real time — or, at least, we hope it'll be once-in-a-lifetime. **READ MORE:** [The Falcon 9 DSCOVR’s booster going to hit the Moon: a video – 7 Feb. 2022]() \[The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0\] **And another errant SpaceX rocket:** *[Video Appears to Show SpaceX Rocket Disintegrating in Epic Fireball]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()