Images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) revealed the largest newly formed crater ever found in the solar system, scientists reported in September 2026 in Science Advances. The crater, named McGetchin after lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, lies on the Moon's eastern edge and formed sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when a comet or asteroid the size of a three- to six-story building struck the surface. It is 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep. Scientists estimate an impact of this magnitude happens on the Moon about once a century or even longer.

Robert Wagner, an image-processing specialist from Intuitive Machines working with LRO camera data, spotted the feature on Oct. 24, 2025, during a routine data-quality check, while comparing before-and-after global images. LRO's sharper Narrow-Angle Camera images later taken at the site clarified the crater's size and shape. Over more than 17 years, the LRO team has identified at least 1,000 new impact craters and flagged 100,000 more surface changes.

Follow-up observations with LRO's thermal instrument, Diviner, found a 4-mile-wide area around the crater about 16 degrees Fahrenheit cooler at night than its surroundings, because the impact loosened the surrounding regolith so it retains less heat. A second paper reported that finding.