Robert Wagner stopped a routine data-quality check when a bright spot on a Moon map caught his eye during an asteroid impact search. He compared before and after images and identified McGetchin, the largest newly formed crater ever found in the solar system.
The crater appeared on the Moon between April 11 and May 22, 2024, and NASA says it measures 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep. Wagner, an image-processing specialist from Intuitive Machines who works with data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera system, said, "I just stopped, dropped everything, and started looking into what that spot was,"
McGetchin on the Moon
NASA says the crater formed on the Moon’s eastern edge after a comet or asteroid the size of a three- to six-story building struck the surface. The crater was named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin.
The finding came from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has circled the Moon for more than 17 years and has already identified at least 1,000 new impact craters. Its team has also flagged 100,000 more surface changes from objects smashing into the Moon or debris flung out after impacts.
Robert Wagner’s Map Check
Wagner was not running a dedicated impact search when he found it. He was scanning a giant Moon map during a routine quality check, then used before and after images to track down the new crater.
NASA says impacts of this size on the Moon happen about once in a century or even longer, yet this one surfaced through a standard map review. That makes the find less about a single dramatic moment and more about how orbital mapping can catch changes that would otherwise be missed.
Diviner and the Cold Spot
After the crater was identified, scientists using Diviner made follow-up observations and found a 4-mile-wide area around it that is about 16 degrees Fahrenheit cooler at night than its surroundings. Researchers said the cooling happens because the impact fluffs up the regolith around the crater, making it less dense and less able to retain heat.
The cold spot reaches far beyond the crater itself, showing that the effect of a large impact does not stop at the rim. For scientists studying the Moon, the next step is to keep using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data to track how fresh impact sites change across the surface and to narrow the source of the strike that created McGetchin.
