Six-storey asteroid smashes into Moon, creating huge new crater
An asteroid the size of a six-storey building crashed into the moon, causing a crater the length of two football pitches, NASA has revealed.
An asteroid the size of a six-storey building crashed into the Moon, causing a crater the length of two football pitches, NASA scientists have revealed.
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The crater was created by a powerful force and is the largest newly-formed crater ever found in the solar system - measuring around 728ft (222m) wide and up to 141 ft (43m) deep.
The crater has been named after the late Thomas McGetchin, a former director of Houston's Lunar and Planetary Institute.
This rare event is thought to occur only once every 132 years, according to scientists.
The discovery was made by Robert Wagner, a scientist with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), when he carried out a routine data-quality check.
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Wagner was scanning a giant moon map on his computer screen in May 2024, when an unusually large bright spot circled by a dark halo caught his attention.
The spot implied that the surface material in the area had been shaken up, according to NASA.
Mr Wagner recalls the moment, saying: "I just stopped, dropped everything, and started looking into what that spot was.”
This comes as NASA begins preparations to build a base for astronauts on the moon's south pole.
The crater was formed on the moon's eastern edge at some point between April 11th and May 22nd 2024, after a comet or asteroid fragment the size of a six-storey building made impact with the surface, NASA said.
The event was described as a “statistically rare, effectively once-in-a-lifetime observation," in the journal Science Advances.
The Thomas McGetchin crater is three times bigger than the previous record-holder, discovered by the LRO ten years ago.
Unfortunately, the moment of impact on the Moon was not picked up by telescopes on Earth or in space.