![\"McGetchin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/mcgetchin-crater.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAn asteroid larger than St Paul’s Cathedral smashed into the Moon in a rare “once-in-a-lifetime” collision, Nasa has revealed.<\/p>\n
Robert Wagner, a scientist with Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was scanning a giant map of the Moon in May 2024 when he noticed an unusually large bright spot circled by a dark halo.<\/p>\n
“I just stopped, dropped everything, and started looking into what that spot was,” he has now revealed.<\/p>\n
Researchers later determined it was a crater that spanned the length of two football pitches.<\/p>\n
The massive indent is around 728 feet (222 metres) wide and up to 14 feet (43 metres) deep and created by a powerful impact.<\/p>\n
The largest newly-formed crater, such an impact is estimated to only occur once every 132 years, researchers said.<\/p>\n
Although newly-observed and analysed, the crater likely formed sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024 after a comet or asteroid the size of a building up to six storeys high struck the surface, Nasa said.<\/p>\n
“This event constitutes a statistically rare, effectively once-in-a-lifetime observation,” scientists wrote in one of two studies on the subject in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n
PICTURED: Overhead close-up view of the McGetchin crater taken on December 5, 2025, by the LRO<\/p>\n
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NASA<\/p>\n
The crater has now been named after the late Thomas McGetchin, a former director of Houston’s Lunar and Planetary Institute, is three time larger than the previous record holder.<\/p>\n
But the actual collision escaped real-time detection by telescopes on Earth and in space.<\/p>\n
LRO’s wide angle images were not identified until August 2025, with more detailed images gathered last autumn, followed by confirmation of the discovery earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The lunar strike agitated the surface of the Moon for more than 66 miles.<\/p>\n
![\"McGetchin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789748892_686_mcgetchin-crater.jpg\")
PICTURED: Side view of the McGetchin crater taken on March 3<\/p>\n
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NASA<\/p>\n
Dust and rocky soil was also thrown at a higher angle than expected, according to Mark Robinson, chief scientist for LRO’s cameras and lead author for one of the studies.<\/p>\n
In a separate study, a four-mile-wide cold spot around the crater was identified.<\/p>\n
This is consistent with a loosening of the Moon’s soil – the cooling happens because the impact disturbs a layer of loose rock, dust and soil around the crater, researchers said.<\/p>\n
The area’s density is then decreased and, therefore, less able to store heat, researchers said.<\/p>\n
![\"Nasa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/nasa-moon-base.webp\")
Scientists will now determine the risk of ejected crater material striking Nasa’s planned moon base<\/p>\n
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NASA<\/p>\n
The extent of the cold spot proves impacts can modify the surface of the Moon far beyond the crater itself, the scientists added.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson told Sky News researchers now plan to calculate the risk of ejected crater material striking Nasa’s planned Moon base<\/a>.<\/p>\n