NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed McGetchin, the largest newly formed crater found in the solar system. The crater appeared on the Moon’s eastern edge between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when a comet or asteroid roughly the size of a three- to six-story building struck the surface. It is 728 feet (222 meters) wide and 141 feet (43 meters) deep, and scientists estimate an impact of this scale occurs only about once a century or longer.
The discovery came from comparing LRO Camera images taken before and after the impact. Follow-up observations by the spacecraft’s Diviner thermal instrument found a four-mile (6.4-kilometer) area around the crater that is about 16 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) cooler at night because the impact loosened the regolith. The result shows impacts alter the Moon far beyond the crater itself, with implications for how rover wheels interact with lunar soil.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/nasas-moon-orbiter-spots-new-once-in-century-moon-crater/
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2026-09-16 19:55:38 UTC
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2026-09-16 19:55:38 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed McGetchin, the largest newly formed crater found in the solar system. The crater appeared on the Moon’s eastern edge between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when a comet or asteroid roughly the size of a three- to six-story building struck the surface. It is 728 feet (222 meters) wide and 141 feet (43 meters) deep, and scientists estimate an impact of this scale occurs only about once a century or longer.\n\nThe discovery came from comparing LRO Camera images taken before and after the impact. Follow-up observations by the spacecraft’s Diviner thermal instrument found a four-mile (6.4-kilometer) area around the crater that is about 16 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) cooler at night because the impact loosened the regolith. The result shows impacts alter the Moon far beyond the crater itself, with implications for how rover wheels interact with lunar soil.\n\nhttps://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/nasas-moon-orbiter-spots-new-once-in-century-moon-crater/",
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