A routine quality check on a Moon map turned up a bright spot ringed by a dark halo, and it marked a 222-metre crater that did not exist before spring 2024, the largest newly formed crater yet found a

Robert Wagner was checking image quality on a global map of the Moon when the halo appeared. The crater it marks, now named McGetchin, is 222 metres across and 43 metres deep, and a zone of ground seven kilometres across now runs 8 to 9 kelvin colder at night than the ground beyond it.

By Deep Field · Edited by Christy Jeremia

Published September 19, 2026 · How we edit