{"id":857719,"date":"2026-09-23T11:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857719\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:44:10","slug":"apod-2026-september-23-a-new-lunar-crater-mcgetchin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857719\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 September 23 &#8211; A New Lunar Crater: McGetchin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: A once-in-a-lifetime crater has appeared on the Moon! A comet or asteroid roughly the size of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fisheries.noaa.gov\/species\/humpback-whale\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">humpback whale<\/a> (approximately 10-20 meters, 30-60 feet) crashed into the Moon sometime between April and May of 2024. The <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/lro\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter<\/a> (LRO), with its <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2024-june-2-rotating-moon-from-lro\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">monthly monitoring of the Moon<\/a>, captured <a href=\"https:\/\/lroc.im-ldi.com\/images\/1501\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">today\u2019s images<\/a> of the lunar surface before and after the event. The resulting crater, named after Apollo-era lunar scientist <a href=\"https:\/\/rock.geosociety.org\/net\/documents\/gsa\/memorials\/v16\/McGetchin-TR.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McGetchin<\/a>, is two soccer fields across. Craters of this size are only expected once <a href=\"https:\/\/ui.adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/2001SSRv...96...55N\/abstract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">every 132 years<\/a>! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.aeh9568\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Follow up thermal imaging<\/a> revealed a <a href=\"https:\/\/assets.science.nasa.gov\/content\/dam\/science\/missions\/lro\/McGetchinLROblinkImage.gif\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">large cold spot<\/a> that surrounds the warm crater. Surface impacts will puff up the loose lunar sediment, or <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/biological-physical\/what-is-lunar-regolith\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">regolith<\/a>, making it less dense and harder to retain heat. This event affected an area <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.aeh7812\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">much larger than the visible crater<\/a>, which will inform humanity\u2019s understanding of surface impacts and the evolution of the Moon\u2019s surface. It also reminds us all to be <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2025-august-3-milky-way-and-exploding-meteor\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">thankful for Earth&#8217;s atmosphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>APOD&#8217;s submission email has changed. Please see <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\/submit\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">APOD Submissions.<\/a><br \/>APOD&#8217;s main NASA site is <a href=\"https:\/\/asterisk.apod.com\/viewtopic.php?t=45023\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">moving<\/a>: From <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apod.nasa.gov<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">science.nasa.gov\/apod<\/a><br \/>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture: the great unknown\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: A once-in-a-lifetime crater has appeared on the Moon! A comet or asteroid roughly the size of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[337743,79,193],"class_list":["post-857719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857719","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=857719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}