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Astronomy Picture of the Day - A New Lunar Crater: McGetchin
NASA ^ | 23 Sep, 2026 | Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Intuitive Machines Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST I

Posted on 09/23/2026 11:43:06 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Explanation: A once-in-a-lifetime crater has appeared on the Moon! A comet or asteroid roughly the size of a humpback whale (approximately 10-20 meters, 30-60 feet) crashed into the Moon sometime between April and May of 2024. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), with its monthly monitoring of the Moon, captured today’s images of the lunar surface before and after the event. The resulting crater, named after Apollo-era lunar scientist McGetchin, is two soccer fields across. Craters of this size are only expected once every 132 years! Follow up thermal imaging revealed a large cold spot that surrounds the warm crater. Surface impacts will puff up the loose lunar sediment, or regolith, making it less dense and harder to retain heat. This event affected an area much larger than the visible crater, which will inform humanity’s understanding of surface impacts and the evolution of the Moon’s surface. It also reminds us all to be thankful for Earth's atmosphere.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

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1 posted on 09/23/2026 11:43:06 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

BEFORE


2 posted on 09/23/2026 11:43:27 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

AFTER


3 posted on 09/23/2026 11:43:48 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 31R1O; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; A_perfect_lady; abb; AFB-XYZ; ...
Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

4 posted on 09/23/2026 11:45:23 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Did it say “Oh no, not again...” just before impact?


5 posted on 09/23/2026 11:49:19 AM PDT by misterdarcey (Abandon all nuance, ye who enter here.)
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To: MtnClimber

Wow.


6 posted on 09/23/2026 11:52:07 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber

Whoa.


7 posted on 09/23/2026 11:52:12 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber
Craters of this size are only expected once every 132 years!

I love how NASA feels it is so necessary to emphasize facts! That's really cool that they do that! I wouldn't have known that statistics could be so very exciting!

8 posted on 09/23/2026 11:56:02 AM PDT by Quality_Not_Quantity ("...for the sake of His name." Psalm 23:3)
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To: Quality_Not_Quantity
Once every 132 years? So where is the 1894 crater?

The moon is America's so it should be "two football fields across."

9 posted on 09/23/2026 12:00:55 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: MtnClimber

Good thing it didn’t hit Uranus!..................


10 posted on 09/23/2026 12:17:14 PM PDT by Red Badger (Iryna Zarutska, May 22, 2002 Kyiv, Ukraine – August 22, 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina Say her name)
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To: misterdarcey

Moon Station Zero has been blown up by a Chinese-trained whale.


11 posted on 09/23/2026 12:19:49 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Be glad it hit the Moon and not Earth! That would have ruined many a person’s day if it had hit here. (The ocean wave from such a hit would have been devastating!)


12 posted on 09/23/2026 1:41:46 PM PDT by Nateman (Democrats did not strive for fraud friendly voting merely to continue honest elections.)
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To: MtnClimber

” . . .roughly the size of a humpback whale (approximately 10-20 meters, 30-60 feet) crashed into the Moon”

Paging Ford Prefect!


13 posted on 09/23/2026 1:53:08 PM PDT by Stosh
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To: MtnClimber

The eye of Sauron!


14 posted on 09/23/2026 2:27:14 PM PDT by 17th Miss Regt (Fascist, deplorable, and proud of it!)
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To: MtnClimber
This reminds me of the meteor that smacked into our planet and created the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago...

Chicxulub Crater


15 posted on 09/23/2026 5:09:27 PM PDT by Deaf and Discerning
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To: MtnClimber

Pretty cool!


16 posted on 09/23/2026 5:50:06 PM PDT by telescope115 (Ad Astra, Ad Deum…)
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To: misterdarcey
That's what the bowl of petunias next to the whale was thinking.

"Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.” - Douglas Adams

17 posted on 09/24/2026 5:33:56 AM PDT by Blogatron (Brought to you by The American Frog Council - "Frog; the other green meat.")
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To: Blogatron

I stand corrected...


18 posted on 09/24/2026 5:35:26 AM PDT by misterdarcey (Abandon all nuance, ye who enter here.)
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