By modeling over 4 billion years of the Moon’s impact history, scientists estimate that the lunar poles may harbor billions of metric tons of subsurface ice.
craters
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Who Wants to Count All the Craters on Mars? Not Me!
Humans found hundreds of thousands of craters on Mars greater than 1 kilometer in diameter, but now computers automate the process delivering crater counts as well as geologically meaningful ages.
Posted inNews
Chicxulub Impact Crater Hosted a Long-Lived Hydrothermal System
Chemical and mineralogical evidence of fluid flow—potentially conducive to microscopic life—was revealed in rock cores extracted from the crater’s “peak ring.”
Posted inNews
Podcast: Instruments of Unusual Size
Rumbling volcanoes act like giant musical instruments that researchers can study to better monitor eruptions.
Posted inNews
Water Ice Lurks in Young—but Not Too Young—Lunar Craters
Using topographic data, researchers have estimated the ages of water ice–containing craters near the Moon’s poles and ruled out volcanism as being a primary route for water delivery.
Posted inNews
The Search for the Impact That Cratered Ancient Scotland
Great Britain’s largest impact crater likely lies in the Scottish Highlands. Scientists dispute whether it’s to the west or the east.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How the Moon Got Its Concentric Rings
A new study explores the origins of massive, multiringed lunar craters.
Posted inNews
Pluto’s and Charon’s Craters Reveal a Solar System Deficit
The New Horizons spacecraft recorded images of craters that imply an unexpected dearth of small objects in the Kuiper Belt.
Posted inNews
A Meteor Struck the Moon During the Total Lunar Eclipse
Telescopes around the world detected an impact event on the lunar surface just before totality on Monday. Amateur and professional astronomers are starting to coordinate data.
Posted inNews
Enormous Impact Crater Spotted in Greenland Under Glacial Ice
Ice-penetrating radar revealed a 31-kilometer impact crater—one of the world’s largest—in northwestern Greenland that might have been formed fewer than 20,000 years ago.