In the silence of the lunar surface, a six-storey mass of rock arrived unannounced in 2024, carving a wound into the Moon as wide as a major stadium — and no atmosphere stood in its way. NASA scientists, studying imagery from the long-orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have named the resulting depression McGetchin crater, the largest newly formed impact site discovered anywhere in the solar system. The finding arrives not as mere astronomical curiosity but as a quiet reckoning: humanity is planning to live there by the 2030s, and the Moon does not offer the invisible shield Earth's inhabit
NASA discovers largest new lunar crater, raising concerns for planned Moon base
The Moon has no such shield. Without an atmosphere to slow them down, asteroids and comets strike with undiminished force.
Mark
So they found this crater on the Moon. How do we know it's actually new? How can they tell the difference between something that formed last year and something that's been there for a million years?
Mimi
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been taking detailed images of the same areas for over 17 years. Researchers compared before-and-after images and could see that the McGetchin crater wasn't there in earlier photographs but appeared between April and May 2024. It's like having a photograph of your backyard from last year and comparing it to one taken this month.
Luke
That's the key constraint, though. They can only identify craters that formed after the LRO started orbiting. Anything older than 17 years, they're working from a single snapshot. And the dating—April to May 2024—that's a window, not a precise moment. We know it happened sometime in that six-week span.
Mark
The crater is as big as the MCG. That's a real object we can visualize. What hit it? Do they know what kind of thing struck the Moon?
Mimi
The object was estimated to be about the size of a six-storey building. Beyond that—whether it was an asteroid, a comet, a piece of something else—the source material doesn't specify. The impact itself is what we know about. The energy released was enormous.
Luke
Right. And that's worth noting. We know the size of the crater and we can estimate the size of the impactor from crater physics, but the composition, the trajectory, where it came from—those details aren't in the reporting. The story is about the crater, not about the projectile itself.
Mark
They mention that impacts like this happen once a century. That sounds rare enough to be safe for a Moon base. But is that actually safe?
Mimi
Once a century is statistically rare, yes. If you're planning a base for the 2030s, the probability of a direct hit during the first decade is low. But the source notes that about 140 smaller craters form every year. The Moon is being hit constantly. It's just that most impacts are small.
Luke
And here's what we don't know from this reporting: what happens to a human structure if a crater that size forms nearby? The impact churned the lunar surface for over 100 kilometers. What does that mean for a base? Does it matter if you're 50 kilometers away? 200 kilometers away? That's an engineering question the article doesn't address.
Mark
Fair point. So the discovery is real, the crater is real, but the implications for actual human safety—that's still being worked out.
Mimi
Exactly. This is a data point. An important one. It shows what the Moon is capable of. But translating that into actual risk assessment for a base—that's the next step.
Der Puls
- A building-sized asteroid struck the Moon between April and May 2024 with enough force to disturb the surface for over 100 kilometres in every direction — and no one felt it coming.
- Unlike Earth, the Moon has no atmosphere to slow or burn up incoming objects, meaning every impact lands with its full, undiminished violence.
- NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — circling the Moon for 17 years — caught the before-and-after, revealing a crater as wide as a major stadium and as deep as three buses stacked tall.
- Impacts of this magnitude are estimated to occur only once per century, giving lunar base planners a narrow but real statistical window of relative safety.
- With a permanent human Moon base targeted for the early 2030s, the McGetchin discovery has shifted impact risk from theoretical concern to active design consideration.
In the silence of the lunar surface, a six-storey mass of rock arrived unannounced in 2024, carving a wound into the Moon as wide as a major stadium — and no atmosphere stood in its way. NASA scientists, studying imagery from the long-orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have named the resulting depression McGetchin crater, the largest newly formed impact site discovered anywhere in the solar system. The finding arrives not as mere astronomical curiosity but as a quiet reckoning: humanity is planning to live there by the 2030s, and the Moon does not offer the invisible shield Earth's inhabitants have always taken for granted.
NASA scientists have identified the largest newly formed crater ever found in the solar system, a discovery that carries weight well beyond astronomy. The crater, named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, was carved into the Moon's surface sometime between April and May 2024, when an object roughly the size of a six-storey building struck with enough force to open a depression as wide as a major stadium. The impact disturbed the lunar surface for more than 100 kilometres in all directions.
What makes the finding more than a geological footnote is context: NASA is working toward a permanent human presence on the Moon by the early 2030s. Earth's thick atmosphere quietly protects its inhabitants every day, slowing and incinerating most incoming objects before they land. The Moon offers no such mercy — asteroids and comets arrive at full force, and the landscape bears the record of every one of them.
The discovery was made through careful analysis of imagery from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft that has spent nearly two decades mapping the Moon's surface. In that time, its team has catalogued over a thousand new craters and identified 100,000 further surface changes from impacts and ejected debris.
Some reassurance exists in the numbers: impacts large enough to produce a crater like McGetchin occur roughly once per century. For planners designing a lunar base, the odds of catastrophic impact in the first decade of habitation appear manageable — but the crater stands as a clear-eyed reminder that the Moon is a place still being shaped by forces Earth's residents rarely meet face to face.
NASA scientists have identified the largest newly formed crater ever discovered in the solar system, a discovery that underscores the hazards waiting for humans who will eventually live on the Moon. The crater, named McGetchin in honor of pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, formed sometime between April 11 and May 22 of 2024, according to research published this week in Science Advances. An object roughly the size of a six-storey building struck the lunar surface with enough force to carve out a depression as wide as the MCG stadium and as deep as three Greyhound buses stacked vertically. The impact released so much energy that it disturbed the lunar surface for more than 100 kilometers in every direction.
The discovery comes as NASA works toward establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon by the early 2030s—a timeline that makes understanding impact risk more than academic. Earth's thick atmosphere provides protection most of us take for granted; friction slows incoming objects and typically burns them up before they reach the ground. The Moon has no such shield. Without an atmosphere to slow them down, asteroids and comets strike with undiminished force, and the consequences are written across the lunar landscape in craters large and small.
Researchers made the finding by analyzing images captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft that has been circling the Moon for more than 17 years. The LRO carries seven instruments designed to map the Moon's topography, measure surface composition, track temperature variations, and assess the radiation environment. In its nearly two decades of operation, the orbiter's team has catalogued at least 1,000 new impact craters and identified 100,000 additional surface changes caused either by direct impacts or by debris ejected from collisions. The smallest craters visible in LRO imagery are about 10 meters across, created by objects no larger than a monster truck tire.
The frequency of impacts varies dramatically by size. Scientists estimate that roughly 140 new craters appear on the lunar surface each year, but these are typically small. Objects large enough to create a crater the size of McGetchin—struck by something as massive as the one that formed it—arrive only once every century or so. That statistical rarity offers some reassurance to planners designing a lunar base. The odds of a catastrophic impact during the first decade of human habitation appear manageable, though not zero. The discovery serves as a reminder that the Moon, for all its scientific promise, remains an environment shaped by forces that Earth's residents rarely experience directly.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
Objects the size of the one that created the McGetchin Crater are once-in-a-century events.— NASA scientists, as reported in Science Advances
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