Mashable77%

A SpaceX rocket likely crashed on the moon 5%

8/5/2026, 4:14:01 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Confirmation Bias, and Halo Effect, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 20.2% saturation with 78 hits. Analysis detected 555 faulty-reasoning hits from 387 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 12.2% and a BS Rank of 5% (29,251 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 95.60% of the article peer group.

A rogue piece of a SpaceX rocket is reported to have crash landed on the moon . 
A SpaceX rocket likely crashed on the moon . 
Announced Tuesday by NASA , the space agency and Elon Musk-owned space company have been tracking a stray upper stage from a Falcon 9 rocket launched last year to deploy Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander . 
Reported by the BBC to likely have crashed on the lunar surface at 07:35 a.m. 
BST, the rocket section is estimated by the news outlet to weigh about 4,000 kilograms (8,000 pounds). 
According to NASA, "solar activity and gravitational forces" caused the upper stage of the rocket, which takes over from the boosters in space, to divert course to the moon. 
The agency predicted SpaceX's object would crash near the Einstein and Bell craters on the moon's surface, the resulting crater to be 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep. 
That's one large divot . 
However, NASA stipulated "the impact poses no danger to Earth." 
Astronomers think some asteroids have been comets all along. 
Here's why. 
The object was identified by astronomers using public data, NASA says, with confirmation of an impending moon impact later made by NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) , located at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. 
CNEOS tracks orbiting asteroid and comet and evaluates their odds of impacting Earth. 
You can't watch the impact from Earth, but NASA says its Meteoroid Environments Office will be using telescopes at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to take images of the event (so stay tuned for moon crash pics). 
If you're worried, NASA described the event of an upper stage crashing on the moon as "a technically accepted and safe method and, in some cases, can be the only practical option for missions in low lunar orbit." 
The agency says its scientists will collect data from the event and described it as providing "valuable insight" into object tracking in space and the moon's geology, especially ejecta plumes - the trajectory of dust, rocks, and material dislodged by a force. 
As the agency pointed out, though human made objects are rare, the moon is regularly hit by meteoroids. 
Why? 
It's like a shitty party: no atmosphere. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 11.1%Mashable: 1.9%Confirmation Bias11.1%This article: 7.5%Mashable: 1.7%Anchoring Bias7.5%This article: 6.7%Mashable: 2.6%Availability Heuristic6.7%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.9%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.4%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 4.4%Mashable: 2.1%Overconfidence Bias4.4%This article: 12.4%Mashable: 4.6%Framing Effect12.4%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 1.2%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 4.7%Mashable: 0.4%Status Quo Bias4.7%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 10.3%Mashable: 3.5%Optimism Bias10.3%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.9%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 3.1%Mashable: 4.5%Negativity Bias3.1%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.7%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.4%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 10.9%Mashable: 3.3%Halo Effect10.9%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 1.1%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 10.3%Mashable: 0.3%Primacy Effect10.3%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.2%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 20.2%Mashable: 2.7%Appeal to Authority20.2%This article: 9.8%Mashable: 1.2%False Dilemma9.8%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.4%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 4.1%Mashable: 4.4%Hasty Generalization4.1%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 1.0%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 3.1%Mashable: 2.6%Appeal to Emotion3.1%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.6%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 1.7%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.2%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 2.0%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 7.5%Mashable: 1.8%Ambiguity (Equivocation)7.5%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.0%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 3.9%Mashable: 1.1%Unattributed Quote3.9%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 3.1%Mashable: 8.3%Biased Writer Voice3.1%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 1.8%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Mashable: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 10.3%Mashable: 14.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…10.3%

387 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers67%attributed speech127writer words
Selected voice

NASA

100%flagged-word coverage
228 attributed words88% of attributed speech87% writer coverage
0%10.0%20.0%Attempt to Sell a Product +17.5 ptsWriter: 0.0%NASA: 17.5%17.5%Biased Writer Voice-9.4 ptsWriter: 9.4%NASA: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.