NASA Photos Show Before and After of Massive Asteroid Impact on the Moon

NASA scientists have published before-and-after photos of a newly formed crater on the Moon that provides an unusually detailed view of what happens when a large object strikes the lunar surface.

Named McGetchin crater after Thomas McGetchin, a former director of Houston’s Lunar and Planetary Institute, the crater measures about 728 feet (222 meters) across and reaches roughly 141 feet (43 meters) deep.

It is the largest newly formed impact crater identified by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and researchers say an impact capable of producing a feature of this size occurs on the Moon only about once every century.

“This event constitutes a statistically rare, effectively once-in-a-lifetime observation,” the scientists write in one of two studies published in the journal Science Advances , per the Associated Press .