‘Once-in-a-century event’: NASA scientists uncover MCG-sized crater on the moon’s surface

The discovery of the largest, newly formed crater in the solar system has provided a stark reminder of the challenges NASA must overcome to achieve its ambitious plan to establish a base on the Moon.

The US space agency is working towards a permanent human presence on the lunar surface by the early 2030s, but NASA’s Moon Base must contend with the possibility of an impact from a comet or asteroid.

The Earth’s atmosphere protects us from such objects, with friction causing them to slow and usually burn up before reaching the surface.

However, the Moon has no atmosphere, so objects easily impact the surface and, in the case of this newly discovered crater, do so with great force.

As reported in the Science Advances journal this week, researchers using images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were able to determine a new crater was formed in 2024, sometime between April 11 and May 22.

It’s estimated the object that produced the crater was as big as a six-storey building, leaving a divot in the lunar surface about as big the MCG and as deep as three Greyhound buses stacked end-to-end vertically.

The object generated so much energy in the collision it churned the lunar surface for more than 100km surrounding the crater.

It was named the McGetchin crater after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin.

The LRO has been circling the Moon for more than 17 years, using its seven on-board instruments to map the topography, surface composition, temperature and radiation environment there.

In that time, the spacecraft’s team has identified at least 1,000 new impact craters and identified 100,000 more surface changes from an object impacting the Moon or from the debris that flung out after.

The smallest craters scientists can distinguish from LRO images are about 10m wide, made by objects about the size of a monster truck tyre.

Scientists estimate about 140 new craters appear on the lunar surface each year from such impacts but objects the size of the one that created the McGetchin Crater are once-in-a-century events.

That’s good news for anyone living at the Moon Base 10 years from now.