NASA’s Moon orbiter finds a 728-foot crater that wasn’t there before

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered a large crater on the Moon that was not there before. The crater is 728 feet wide and up to 141 feet deep, according to Tempo.co English. It was formed by an impact from a comet fragment or asteroid, roughly the size of a three- to six-story building, that occurred between April 11 and May 22, 2024, as reported by Tempo.co English.

The impact was not detected in real-time by Earth-based and space telescopes, but was later identified during routine image processing in October 2025 by Robert Wagner, an image-processing specialist from Intuitive Machines, working with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team, as per Tempo.co English. The crater is located on the Moon's eastern edge and has disturbed the surface for miles around it, creating a surprisingly large cold zone.

The discovery provides valuable information about how the Moon's surface changes over time. According to Tempo.co English, an impact of this scale is estimated to occur on the lunar surface only once every 100 to 132 years. The crater has been named McGetchin crater in honor of late lunar scientist Tom McGetchin.

Brief written by urgent.news from ScienceDaily, Tempo.co English, The Economic Times, CBC News — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.