The Moon has a new crater, called McGetchin. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera people have the story here. (That’s their before and after view.) NASA calls it a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Specifically,
Officially named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, the crater formed on the Moon’s eastern edge sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, after a comet or asteroid the size of a three- to six-story building hit the surface.
The crash left a crater, 728 feet wide, that spans the length of two football fields. And at 141 feet deep, the crater could fit three vertically stacked yellow school buses.
Scientists estimate that an impact of this magnitude happens on the Moon about once in a century or even longer.
So the perpetrator here was roughly the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor, which made a great show in the sky, caused some havoc on the ground, and left a widely scattered shower of meteor chunks.
The atmosphere is a pretty good shield. For Earth. The Moon isn’t as lucky.
Leave a Reply