{"id":852659,"date":"2026-09-19T00:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T00:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/852659\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T00:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T00:02:10","slug":"the-moon-takes-center-stage-saturday-night-and-makes-the-news-wtop-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/852659\/","title":{"rendered":"The moon takes center stage Saturday night and makes the news \u2013 WTOP News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday night is the annual \u201cInternational Observe the Moon Night<\/a>,\u201d where observers and lovers of the moon worldwide will be looking at the moon and sponsoring moon-watching events. <\/p>\n

The night is sponsored by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter<\/a> and the Solar System Exploration Division of NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center,<\/a> with support from many partners.<\/p>\n

As stated on NASA\u2019s International Observe the Moon Night webpage, the goals of International Observe the Moon Night:<\/p>\n

Unite people\u00a0across the globe\u00a0in a celebration of lunar observation, science and exploration, and provide information and a platform. <\/p>\n

Raise awareness\u00a0of NASA\u2019s lunar science and exploration programs.<\/p>\n

Empower people to learn more\u00a0about the moon and space science and exploration, using Earth\u2019s moon as an accessible entry point.<\/p>\n

Facilitate sharing\u00a0of moon-inspired stories, images, artwork and more.<\/p>\n

Inspire continued observation\u00a0of the moon, the sky and the world around us.<\/p>\n

Support all people\u00a0who are interested in learning more about and connecting to the moon.<\/p>\n

In the D.C. region this year, there are 22 International Observe the Moon events<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To add to this year\u2019s events, the moon has had quite the year so far.<\/p>\n

First and foremost was humanity\u2019s return to the moon in April with the Artemis II mission<\/a>, a major rework of the Artemis Program<\/a> and the declaration of establishing Moon Base<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Breaking moon news<\/p>\n

The moon also made recent headlines regarding its origin and a just-discovered once-in-a-lifetime lunar impact.<\/p>\n

Moon researchers, using novel computer simulations, determined that the moon could have formed within just five hours <\/a>after the impact between our planet and a Mars-sized impactor named Theia.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

NASA and the Universities Space Research Association Wednesday announced that between April 11 to May 22, 2024, after a comet or asteroid the size of a three-to six-story building hit the lunar surface, a new crater was created<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Officially named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, the crater formed on the Moon\u2019s eastern edge. It was discovered <\/a>during a review of data and photographs obtained by NASA\u2019s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.<\/p>\n

Julie Stopar, one of the LRO lunar scientists involved in studying the impact and co-author of the science paper on the event, provided some additional insight. She related that \u201cthe impactor size and force (involved) are currently being assessed by the team.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe new crater is large enough that it might have made a visible flash under favorable conditions,\u201d Stopar stated in an email.<\/p>\n

She said she expects that people will now be searching for that data.<\/p>\n

Follow Greg Redfern on his daily blog<\/a> to keep up with the latest news in astronomy and space exploration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday night is the annual \u201cInternational Observe the Moon Night,\u201d where observers and lovers of the moon worldwide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-852659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}