A researcher at NASA has found a massive, recently-formed crater on the Moon – a rare occurrence that only happens “once in a century or even longer”, according to scientists.<\/p>\n
The crater, dubbed “McGetchin”, measures 222 metres wide, NASA said in a blog post.<\/p>\n
It is believed to have been created in the spring of 2024 from a comet or asteroid colliding with the Moon, with researchers describing the object that caused it to be the size of a building three-to-six storeys high.<\/p>\n
“Scientists estimate that an impact of this magnitude happens on the Moon about once in a century or even longer,” NASA said in the blog post.<\/p>\n
Although the crater had been there for years, it was not discovered until Robert Wagner, a researcher with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), noticed it in a new scan of the Moon’s surface.<\/p>\n
The crater appeared as a “large bright spot circled by a dark halo” by the LRO probe, which has been studying the Moon since 2009.<\/p>\n
A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances determined it was the largest new crater ever discovered in the solar system.<\/p>\n
While the Moon has numerous craters, many of which are far bigger than McGetchin, researching a crater’s formation in real time can help build understanding of the Moon’s geology.<\/p>\n
This in turn could better prepare future crewed missions to the Moon, which are currently planned by both the United States and China.<\/p>\n
Unlike Earth, the Moon has virtually no atmospheric layer, so space debris does not slow down or burn up before colliding with the surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A researcher at NASA has found a massive, recently-formed crater on the Moon – a rare occurrence that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-602952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}