The Galileo spacecraft obtained this image of the crescent moon. The smallest features visible are 8 kilometers (5 miles) in size.
Click on image for full size
NASA/JPL
The Youngest Crater on the Moon
News story originally written on December 30, 2002
Astronomers may have found the Moon’s youngest crater. It formed in 1953 when the Moon was hit a small asteroid. From Earth the impact looked like a small flash of light on the Moon.
Scientists believe the object that hit the Moon was probably the size of about 3 football fields and its impact made a crater 2 km in size, about the size of New York’s Central Park. They have found pictures of the Moon surface that show the new crater surrounded by a bright blue blanket of lunar soil.
If the object had struck the Earth instead of the Moon, the impact would have been so great that an area the size of a large city would have been destroyed.
Last modified February 24, 2003 by Lisa Gardiner.
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