NASA Identifies Massive New Impact Crater on Moon
The feature, which is wider than Rome’s Colosseum, forms when an asteroid or fragment of a comet estimated to be roughly the size of a three- to six-story building strikes the lunar surface between April 11 and May 22, 2024.
The collision occurs on the Moon’s near side but is not detected by telescopes operating on Earth or in space at the time of the impact.
The discovery is later made possible through NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been monitoring the Moon since 2009. Automated comparisons of the spacecraft’s wide-angle images flag a previously unseen crater in August 2025, prompting researchers to examine the location with higher-resolution imagery.
Researchers name the crater after lunar scientist Thomas McGetchin. The newly identified formation measures roughly three times the width of the previous record-holder detected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Scientists estimate that an impact of this scale occurs only about once every 132 years, highlighting the rarity of such a large collision on the lunar surface.
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