The Moon has a New Once-in-a-Century Crater
The lunar surface is more dynamic than you might think The post The Moon has a New Once-in-a-Century Crater appeared first on Nautilus .
In the spring of 2024, the moon experienced a dramatic event when it was struck by an object as large as a six-story building. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), an orbital satellite, captured the impact as it created a new crater on the lunar surface. The LRO has been orbiting the moon for 17 years, regularly surveying its terrain with its wide-angle camera.
NASA image-processing specialist Robert Wagner first noticed the moon's new dimple in 2025. Wagner was so impressed by the crater's distinct impact debris pattern that he immediately started investigating it further. The crater, which is 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep, is relatively rare, as such large impacts occur only once every century.
The LRO's narrow-angle camera provided a closer look at the impact site, confirming its size and depth. To further study the crater, NASA technicians used the thermal camera (Diviner) and discovered that the area surrounding the crater was around 16 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the surrounding lunar surface. This phenomenon, known as "impact gardening," occurs when an object hits the moon's surface and decompacts the dusty regolith, causing it to lose heat more quickly.
The LRO's findings were published in two papers in Science Advances. This event is a statistically rare, effectively once-in-a-lifetime observation, highlighting the dynamic nature of the lunar surface.
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