A new 225-meter (740-foot) crater appeared on the Moon while nobody was looking. NASA's lunar orbiter imaged the dramatic aftermath.
Such large impacts are once-in-a-century events. This one happened in the spring of 2024.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon-new-crater-nasa-orbiter #space #science #nature #nasa
The new lunar impact obliterated the local terrain and scattered debris up to 120 kilometers away.
Image shows the region before impact; red line indicates the location of the new crater rim.
[PDF link]
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1896.pdf #science #technology #space #nature
Thanks for having our back, Luna. 🤘
But next time you can let wunna them suckers just skate on by. 😉
That's an ideal spot for a moonbase, since what are the odds another one will hit it!
No, I would think substantially smaller. Atmosphere would break it up, in parts, slow bits down. And the ejected material would also not necessarily get that far.
But the actual size wasn't mentioned, was it?
@knud @coreyspowell Not in the article, no. But it has to have been reasonably large to make such a large crater.
On the other hand, given the relative sizes a once-in-a-century event on the moon should happen about every decade on Earth... So yeah, I wish the story authors had given a bit more context.
OK, tried to read up on this: 1/10 years would be the 10m-class of asteroids. These would mostly explode in the upper atmosphere and not actually reach the ground. The air blast could be substantial. The Chelyabinsk-meteor was estimated at 20m.
So: likely breakup, parts might reach the ground, but only at terminal speed, not at initial speed, some boom, but no crater.
Happy to not live on the Moon!
Probably snuck in at night.
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