By Riddhi Kannabiran
The Moon’s craters were thought to be unchanging for billions of years, but researchers have recently found that its surface is continuously changing. NASA has recently announced the discovery of a newly formed lunar crater called “McGetchin crater”, scientists identified the crater by comparing images of the moon taken at different times by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). This discovery is rare because it’s so recent, this gives scientists the opportunity to study the creation of the crater shortly after it occurred.
The discovery itself began when Robert Wagner, an image processing specialist who works with the LRO camera, noticed an unusually bright spot surrounded by a darker area while observing a map of the Moon. NASA scientists identified this crater as newly made by comparing older and newer photographs of the same location. Craters themselves are formed by asteroids striking the moon, this throws excess material called ejecta around the surrounding area of the new crater. These were the dark patterns that Wagner observed when looking at the photo, and what led to the eventual confirmation of the new discovery.
Researchers determined that McGetchin Crater formed sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024. Scientists believe it was created when a ‘space object” struck the surface of the moon, estimating the newly formed crater to be around 782 ft wide and 141 ft deep. NASA researchers approximate that an impact on the Moon’s surface that causes a crater this large occurs around once every century or less, this makes the discovery particularly valuable in its rarity for NASA.
Studying the newly formed crater is important for NASA because the Moon itself lacks the atmosphere, rainfall and active erosion that is present in the Earth that constantly reshape and impact the Earth’s surface. As a result the Lunar Craters are much easier to observe and they remain visible for longer periods of time, preserving evidence of impacts from past “space objects”. Comparing these newly formed craters with older ones help scientists overall understanding of history as it pertains to the Solar system, and it allows researchers to observe how the impacts of asteroids and comets shape planetary surface over billions of years.
From this discovery Scientists have come to a new conclusion that a four mile area around the McGetchin craters temperature was 16 degrees Fahrenheit more cooler at night than the temperature of the surrounding terrain. This has led scientists to understand that the Moon’s surface material has different physical properties and does not retain heat in the same fashion as undisturbed lunar soil. Demonstrating how a seemingly small discovery can lead to the further understanding of new observations.
This discovery demonstrates the importance of long term space missions. This crater could only be identified as “new” because scientists and photographs of the area before the impact that created McGetchin. Without those older images to compare the scientists could not have been able to determine when the crater formed. Continued observation of spacecraft like the LRO provides scientists with crucial information that a singular picture could not provide.