Moon

NASA finds moon crater from an impact that struck undetected two years earlier

NASA has confirmed the discovery of a new crater on the moon, formed when a comet or asteroid fragment struck the lunar surface sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, without being noticed at the time, according to CNN.

The crater, named McGetchin, spans 728 feet (222 meters) in width and 141 feet (43 meters) in depth, according to CBS News, making it the largest newly formed impact crater ever identified in the solar system.

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How the impact went undetected for so long#

NASA image processing specialist Robert Wagner spotted the crater while comparing hundreds of Wide-Angle Camera frames from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter taken in 2011 and 2025, according to Digital Camera World. The impact site displayed distinctive characteristics: a notably luminous formation surrounded by a darker ring, according to the outlet.

Wagner told NASA, as quoted by Hindustan Times, "I just stopped, dropped everything, and started looking into what that spot was."

CBS News reports that the panoramic shots remained undetected within the massive dataset until August 2025, with more detailed pictures gathered last fall and the discovery confirmed early this year.

A once-in-a-century scale of impact#

According to the study authors cited by CNN, such a collision happens roughly every 132 years on the moon, making the event a statistically rare, effectively once-in-a-lifetime observation.

Tyler Powell, lead author of one of the two studies published in Science Advances, told Space.com that researchers were "extremely lucky it formed during the lifetime of the LRO mission and that we are able to observe the region both before and after impact."

Mark Robinson, chief scientist for the LRO's cameras at Intuitive Machines and lead author of one of the studies, determined that the collision disturbed lunar terrain across a distance exceeding 66 miles (100 kilometers), Phys.org reports.

Why the crater matters for a future moon base#

CBS News reports that the depression dwarfs the previous record-holder discovered by the LRO ten years earlier, and is named for the late Thomas McGetchin, a former director of Houston's Lunar and Planetary Institute.

CNN reports that scientists see the finding as evidence the moon continues to experience frequent collisions requiring careful observation, since the moon is a high-priority destination for NASA and other space agencies planning sustained human exploration.

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