McGetchin is a very young lunar impact crater that formed sometime between 11 April and 22 May 2024. The crater was first captured in images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's Wide Angle Camera instrument in May 2024, but it was not identified until October 2025 by LRO scientist Robert Wagner during a search for new impact craters. The crater is surrounded by a large cold spot that was created when the impact event loosened nearby lunar regolith.
It is named after planetary scientist Thomas R. McGetchin; the name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union on 4 May 2026.
Characteristics McGetchin lies one degree north of the lunar equator in the eastern hemisphere., immediately east of Mare Spumans. It sits at the boundary between volcanic mare basalt and ancient anorthosite highlands, near the outer rim of Crisium basin and from Mare Crisium. It measures on average in diameter and is up to deep. It is slightly asymmetrical, with a long axis of and a short axis of . Its crater wall has slopes averaging 24°, reaching nearly 40° in some sections. The rim has an average height of above the pre-existing terrain.
The crater was formed when a small comet or asteroid fragment impacted the Moon sometime in April or May of 2024. The impact event released an estimated of energy (approximately 15 kilotons of TNT equivalent); impact events of this magnitude are thought to happen on the Moon once every 132 years on average. McGetchin's formation created a cold spot about wide with nighttime temperatures 8–9 K cooler than surrounding terrain. Cold spots are associated with young craters, but fade within 100 kyr to 1 Myr. They are hypothesized to form when the impact event decompresses nearby lunar regolith, allowing it to cool faster during lunar night.
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