A massive new 728-foot impact crater, named McGetchin, formed on the moon’s eastern edge in 2024 after an asteroid or comet struck the surface. Discovered by researchers using NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the crater offers rare insights into planetary dynamics and highlights new hazards for future lunar exploration.
The moon recently acquired a massive new scar, and planetary scientists say it ranks as the largest recently formed one that’s been found in the entire solar system. Spanning 728 feet wide—just over the length of two American football fields—and plunging 141 feet deep, the newly documented McGetchin crater formed when an object roughly the size of a multi-story building slammed into the lunar surface. Researchers named the moon’s new hole for pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, who died in 1979.
The event occurred sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, as described in two studies published September 16 in the journal Science Advances. Because Earth’s atmosphere slows and burns up most incoming space rocks, researchers rely on the moon’s unshielded surface to understand how planetary bodies evolve through collisions, which can inform plans to send humans and technology there.
Discovery and Measurements of the McGetchin Crater
The massive feature came to light in October 2025 when Robert Wagner, an image-processing specialist at the aerospace company Intuitive Machines, found a large bright spot surrounded by a dark halo in photos from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera system. That sort of composition suggests the surface material had been disrupted.
“It was by far the most obvious impact debris pattern I’ve ever seen in one of these images,”
Robert Wagner, image-processing specialist at Intuitive Machines
When Wagner compared before-and-after images of the region, his suspicions were confirmed. Planetary scientist Mark Robinson, of Houston-based spaceflight company Intuitive Machines, presented the findings March 17 at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Meeting in The Woodlands, Texas, noting that the crater measures 225 meters wide and averages about 43 meters in depth. Robinson previously noted that after the orbiter began its mission in 2009, one of the first craters spotted was 70 meters wide.
“I used to joke with folks … that now the bar has been set, you have to find a 100-meter crater. Now, lo and behold, we have 225 meters.”
Mark Robinson, planetary scientist at Intuitive Machines
Researchers estimate that a crater of this magnitude forms on the moon only once every 132 to 139 years. Tyler Powell, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory who co-authored the other study, tells Space.com’s Samantha Mathewson that they are extremely lucky it formed during the lifetime of the LRO mission and that they are able to observe the region both before and after impact. The feature sits along the boundary dividing the rugged lunar highlands and a flat mare formed by liquid magma pooling on the moon’s surface. Its steep edges and depth suggest it punched through strong material like solidified lava, while its slightly elongated shape indicates variations in the subsurface material.
Thermal Anomalies and Far-Reaching Debris Patterns
The impact did more than carve out a giant hole; it violently disrupted the surrounding lunar environment. Follow-up observations using the thermal instrument Diviner on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter allowed researchers to identify a four-mile-wide area around the new feature that is around 16 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than its surroundings at night. According to Powell and colleagues, the chillier temperature is due to the regolith—moon dirt—getting fluffed up by the impact, reducing the material’s density and ability to retain heat.
Additionally, Wagner and colleagues found that ejected material disturbed the surface more than 75 miles—or 120 kilometers—from the crater. That combination demonstrates the far-reaching effects of incoming space rocks.
Implications for Future Lunar Habitats
As space agencies look toward establishing a long-term human presence on the lunar surface, the discovery provides vital safety data. Bits of rock ejected from impacts could hit lunar habitats at high speeds from very far away, meaning buildings will need to be designed to survive.
“You’ve got to protect your assets to withstand small particles hitting you at order of magnitude a kilometer per second,”
Mark Robinson, planetary scientist at Intuitive Machines
Tyler Powell emphasized to New Scientist’s Leah Crane that understanding surface properties is essential when trying to send rovers or astronauts or build things on the moon. NASA is forging ahead with its plan to establish an enduring human presence on the moon, so scientists need to calculate the risk of debris.
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