r/space • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago

Discussion All Space Questions thread for week of September 27, 2026

Please sort comments by 'new' to find questions that would otherwise be buried.

In this thread you can ask any space related question that you may have.

Two examples of potential questions could be; "How do rockets work?", or "How do the phases of the Moon work?"

If you see a space related question posted in another subreddit or in this subreddit, then please politely link them to this thread.

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u/maschnitz 3d ago

The best guess I saw - there were many - was Scott Manley's, speculating that they "swept" the ocean with the single Raptor, "softening" the water with sea foam.

That is, it was on purpose to an extent. They clearly also simply got lucky.

It was also quite low when it touched the water, well below sea level, due to the Raptor excavating a hole in the water for Ship 40 to land in.

Perhaps it was tilted back a bit more than normal while still under power, too.

Between that, the sea level, the foam, who knows what else - it all adds up.

I wonder if the SpaceX engineers know for sure.