The new lunar pockmark, named McGetchin crater after the late geologist and lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, is about 728 feet (222 meters) wide, on average, and 141 feet (43 m) deep — imagine a hole as long as two American football fields and deep enough to fit a 14-story building inside.
McGetchin is nowhere near the moon's largest crater; that honor goes to the South Pole-Aitken basin, a gargantuan gouge about 10,000 times wider than the newly discovered crater. But McGetchin is the largest new crater. Appearing seemingly out of nowhere in images from spring 2024, it's the biggest one scientists have seen in the 17 years that LRO has been active. And now that it's known to the world, some intrepid skywatchers think they've spotted the crater's bright, white debris ring from Earth.
Brandon Specktor: The moon is riddled with craters. What's so interesting about this new one?
This crater, in particular, is so fresh and young — it's only about 2.5 years old. It's in really, really good condition. We can study it to understand how impact cratering occurs and all the processes that go along with it.
BS: The meteorite that made this crater was the size of a three-to-six-story building, according to your team's estimates. Could we have seen this impact from Earth?
A global view of the moon made from hundreds of images taken by the Wide-Angle Camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The black arrow shows the location of McGetchin crater. (Image credit: NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)
BS: This impact happened in April or May 2024. One of your colleagues discovered the crater in LRO data in October 2025. Why did it take so long?
Over time, we eventually will get repeat imaging [of the same area], but it takes years to get that. On top of that, the processing that it takes to make the before and after images
BS: Your colleague, Robert Wagner, says he "stopped and dropped everything" when he discovered the crater in LRO's data. What was your reaction when he first showed it to you?
BS: So because you know this crater is so fresh, it's helping you date other craters you've seen too?
McGetchin crater, circled in white, as seen in a 2025 LRO image (left) compared to an image of the same part of the moon taken in 2011 (right). Scientists think the crater formed between April and May of 2024. (Image credit: NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)
BS: What, specifically, do you hope to learn about the moon from this crater?
And that's important, because people want to go to the surface for exploration, send landers, start building moon bases and so forth, and there's some concern that impactors will be a hazard. So it would be helpful to have a better idea of whether that's a really frequent concern or only a once-in-a-while concern. We can also study things like how the impact angle, the target materials, and the velocity and type of impactor play a role in forming craters.
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JS: At this point, it's not too much of a concern to myself about human-made objects destroying natural habitats on the moon. Other spacecraft impacts, like the boosters from the Apollo program, made craters a long time ago. But I think, as there are more people and countries and even companies going to the moon, they'll have to get coordinated so as to not interfere with each other's activities — because that would be a problem. It's just a reminder like, "Hey, guys; you need to talk to each other and get coordinated and make sure you're keeping track of these impacts and your debris, and you're working together."
This interview has been condensed and edited lightly for clarity.
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