McGetchin crater is 222 metres across, a 132-year lunar impact
FOX 35 said scientists found a McGetchin moon crater about 222 metres across, formed in spring 2024 and spotted in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images. Scripps News said the hole is up to 43 metres deep and estimated at once every 132 years.
Science··Morning
Two hundred twenty-two metres
FOX 35 said scientists found a once-in-a-century lunar crater about 222 metres across, formed in spring 2024 and spotted by comparing Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images. Researchers called it the largest recently formed impact crater found in the solar system. The station said the crater, named McGetchin, formed in 2024 but was not discovered until autumn 2025. Before-and-after NASA Goddard images sat beside that copy. The 222 metres width is the shared size both desks use.[1], [2]
Forty-three metres down, 132 years
Scripps News said the steep-sided hole is about 222 metres across and up to 43 metres deep, the biggest known recent impact crater in the solar system. Scientists wrote that the event is a once-in-a-lifetime observation, estimated at once every 132 years. The story said two papers appeared Wednesday and that NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter supplied the before-and-after photographs from May 2024. It framed the crater as useful as NASA prepares a lunar base.[1], [2]
A Florida desk and a national desk
FOX 35 is the local station carrying the NASA image set. Scripps News is the second independent publisher on the same McGetchin hole. The two agree on 222 metres and the 2024 formation year. Scripps alone carries the 43 metres depth and the 132-year cadence. However neither desk watched the impact in real time; both are reading orbiter pairs. Alternative explanation: a later image match could revise the formation month without erasing the hole.[1], [2]
