The crater, named in honor of the late Thomas McGetchin, former director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, is three times larger than the previous record found by the LRO a decade ago. Pockmarked since ancient times, the moon has some of the largest impact craters in the solar system, including one that stretches more than 1,500 miles wide. This latest impact shook the lunar surface for more than 66 miles. Dust and rocky soil were thrown at a higher angle than expected, according to Mark Robinson, chief scientist for the LRO cameras at Intuitive Machines. Robinson was the lead author of one of the studies. A separate study identified a 4-mile-wide cold spot around the new crater, consistent with a loosening of the moon’s top layer of soil. Co-author David Paige of the University of California, Los Angeles, compares it to gardening. “Now we’re thinking about impacts as a way to farm the regolith: stirring up the sediments and putting things on top that are usually below the surface,” Paige said in a statement. LRO’s numerous crater discoveries since its launch in 2009 show that the top inch of soil on the moon is being blown away by ejected material every 80,000 years, faster than previously thought, according to Robinson. Contrary to popular belief that the dusty lunar footprints of the Apollo moonwalkers will last forever, “they will definitely be long gone in that time period,” Robinson said in an email. The next step is to calculate the risk of material ejected from the crater hitting NASA’s planned lunar base, he added. “That information will help engineers stiffen structures so they don’t have to worry about damage, or maybe worry less.”
