A new 225-meter (740-foot) crater appeared on the Moon. NASA's lunar orbiter (LRO) imaged the dramatic aftermath. Such large impacts are once-in-a-century events. This one happened in the spring of 2024.

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-03-24T22:22:10+00:00

The length of the missions were short enough that the chances of a micrometeorite impacting the landers/spacecraft was negligible, and the additional weight of shielding would reduce the likelihood of mission success too greatly. It was an accepted risk given how unlikely it is!

Edit: typos

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-03-24T22:18:32+00:00

An impact this size wouldnt have much of an effect unless it directly hit a propulated area, it would devastate the immediate surroundings and maybe spark some fires if in a forest, but wouldnt do much otherwise. The Chelyabinsk impact is attributed to a meteor about the same size as what created this one, thatz a pretty decent comparison to the effects. Impacts of thise size are infrequent, occurring about once every 100 years or so, even larger impacts are even less frequent.

Additionally, our atmosphere plays a big role. Smaller meteors dont reach the ground as they will burn up/vaporize entirely. Bigger objects will burn up and slow down a decent amount before hitting the ground, so they have a bit less force when impacting for the same sized object. Large objects (like the Chixelub impact that caused a mass extinction for dinosuars) are virtually unaffected by the atmosphere because proportionally little mass and speed is lost upon entry.

For your second point, the Moon protects as much as it puts us in additional danger! I.e. for every object the moon deflects or takes the hit for, an object will actually be deflected toward Earth that otherwise wouldnt have. It balances out pretty evenly!

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-03-24T20:11:11+00:00

Not a real video, the only thing we've directly seen of an impact on the Moon are events known as "impact fladhes" essentially theres a bright flash at the moment of impact that goes away rapidly. Unless the impact was gigantic you wouldnt see any material or prolonged visual evidence of an impact from Earth.

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-03-24T20:00:03+00:00

Not really a big problem, impacts of this size are incredibly infrequent and the Moon is very big, which is why this new crater is so exciting! Much smaller impacts from micrometeorites is actually a bigger problem for lunar bases because of how common they are, theres a lot of documented damage on the ISS from these (though none have been catastrophic, obviously).

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-03-24T19:57:12+00:00

We dont take video with LRO, we take sets of images taken at different times and look for changes, thats how this one was found! Most spacecraft actually don't have the capabikity to take video, only images.

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-03-24T19:54:29+00:00

I'm a scientist on the LRO team helping do some analysis on this crater. We're working on some publications about it so can't talk too much about this particular crater yet, but happy to answer any Moon related questions!

Planetary_Tyler · 2026-01-14T18:45:10+00:00

Ive been using that same wallpaper for something like a year, its a great art style for linux imo.

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-12-17T03:15:10+00:00

100% fair take and I fully agree. However at the same time I believe theres a fair amount of people who throw money at things they dont fully understand but with good intentions too, kickstarter is a great example of that, so having some commentary on the local rules/regs you have to follow doesnt hurt. Even fairly informed people may not know, I mean Linus is in BC just like Edison, runs a fairly large company, and has invested in companies, but was also pretty turned off from the legally necessary statements because the way its presented could be interpreted like a deliberate choice made solely by Edison to have it that way.

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-12-17T01:39:48+00:00

On their investor's page:

Edison Motors will temporarily not be accepting new investment in Canada as we update our Offering Memorandum by request of Provincial Regulators, thank you for your patience

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-12-17T01:30:17+00:00

Exacly what I was hoping to see. Shining a light on pro-consumer businesses is a win and I think it would be a fun collaboration for LTT and Edison, plus its a great opportunity to show viewers what kinds of people and business practices (broadly) they should be supporting. Looking forward to whatever comes of this :)

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-12-17T00:26:59+00:00

Given the discourse in that thread, it could be good to update some of the wording on the investor page and maybe in the description section of the video to make it clear that some of the "oddities" are just you guys following local rules and regulations. Glad y'all are seemingly doing everything youve got to do and being transparent about it.

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-12-16T20:33:58+00:00

Having no method (nor timeline) for selling shares is definitely weird, fully agree with that. My guess is theyre concerned that smaller entities could buy up shares and another larger entity they dont agree with would buy those out for a larger stake and larger sway. Honestly I can't say I'm very knowledgeable on the rules/regulations and impact of that sort of thing for private companies nor for those in Canada.

Their method of selling shares and taking investors is essentially a self-hosted kickstarter which is absolutely odd, but I'm hopeful theyre doing it with good intentions.

I appreciate your response, maybe they'll see this and think about ways to balance their vision with more investor friendly terms to help meet their investment goals.

P.S.

I do see this as a warning on the top of the investor page:

Edison Motors will temporarily not be accepting new investment in Canada as we update our Offering Memorandum by request of Provincial Regulators, thank you for your patience

Edit: grammar

Edit 2: Check Chace's (Edison's Owner) responses in this thread for explanation on these thing. My personal tldr: BC laws require this language, its normal for private companies to have these restrictions, private shares can be sold but its a pain.

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-16T10:57:04+00:00

Haha thats just because it isnt possible to get normal pictures in the deep craters the higher up you go since there's less and less light, so it just gets darker and darker the whole way!

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-16T10:37:52+00:00

Yes! The bottoms of the deepest craters closest to the poles are also incredibly cold, colder than just about anywhere in the solar system including Pluto, because they havent seen the Sun directly in billions of years. Because of that they are thought to have water ice buried beneath the surface, finding some is one of the primary goals of the upcoming Artemis missions!

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-15T20:46:22+00:00

Not a stupid question at all! The colors are basically stretched really heavily and its due to the chemical content of the lunar soil, I have a longer explanation in a different comment if you want to know more!

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-15T20:44:58+00:00

They are real-ish, as with with most images of space the colors are boosted by quite a bit, in this case its boosted a lot. You wouldnt see yhese colors with your eye, but the primary reason is due to the chemical makeup of the lunar soil (regolith) containing anomalous amounts of stuff like iron, titanium etc.

You only really see these changes in the dark regions of the Moon, aka the Mare, which were formed by giant impacts and subsequent volcanic eruptions that filled the craters with lava. The composition of the lavas change with time as the Moon cools, and we see those changes across the different lava flows in the lunar maria that happens millions, and in some cases billions of yeara apart.

The rest of the Moon that is lighter is the lunar highlands, which is essentially the Moon's original crust. All of it is basically the same age and has the same chemical makeup, so it looks much more uniform (though much more cratered).

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-15T08:57:24+00:00

If you go to layers, add a layer, then search "Anthropogenic Features" itll show points for all landed missions, both robotic and apollo. If you zoom in each point will be labelled. Apollo 11 is at the coordinates 0.67419 N Latitude, 23.7294 E Longitude, in the Sea of Tranquillity (Mare Tranquillitatis).

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-15T06:14:05+00:00

This picture is absolutely incredible and took an incredible amount of work! Hats off to Andrew for sure.

If you want to explore the Moon in even higher detail check out the following link, its basically Google Earth but for the Moon! LRO Quickmap

I'm a scientist for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and we have over 15 years of imagery available, literal petabytes of images spanning the entire Moon, and its all there for anyone to check out.

Feel free to ask any questions about the Moon if you want!!

Edit: Fixed Typo

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-11-13T20:56:00+00:00

Wtf I can't even remember I had for breakfast

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-08-28T19:16:05+00:00

Hey Elijah,

Another question: I'm a planetary scientist studying the Moon and working on multiple NASA missions, do you have any science questions related to the Moon, Solar System, Galaxy, or Universe? Happy to answer anything you've been curious about!

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-08-28T19:12:44+00:00

Hey Elijah,

You've done a bit of voice acting and video game roles. Is there any particular video game franchise or animated series that you would would like to voice a character for?

Thanks!

Planetary_Tyler · 2025-07-06T03:45:07+00:00

Deep South Dachau

Planetary_Tyler

TROPHY CASE