A recently discovered moon crater is the largest newly formed impact crater found in the solar system to date.
The crater is 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep, NASA said Wednesday, and was formed sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when an asteroid or comet estimated to be as big as a three-to six-story building made impact with the moon’s surface.
Findings on the crater, now named the McGetchin crater, were published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. The authors found that the crater is larger than any other newly formed craters across the solar system.
The scientists also determined that the crater’s formation was a “once-in-132-year event,” per the study’s abstract. Before the new crater was found, the largest contemporary impact crater that had been found on the moon was roughly 229 feet wide.
Scientists using NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter robotic spacecraft first noticed the crater last October. Robert Wagner, one of the authors of the Science Advances study, said in the NASA release that he began looking into the crater after noticing a bright spot surrounded by a darker halo made of surface material.
“It was by far the most obvious impact debris pattern I’ve ever seen in one of these images,” Mr. Wagner said.
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