Is there a NEW crater on the Moon?

Question

I was looking at it with binoculars, and saw a fairly large crater in the upper left quarter. It was incredibly bright and almost perfectly round. I used to look at the Moon all the time with a telescope (a BAD garage sale goof when I sold it!), and don't remember ever seeing it. Is it new, or have I just been incredibly unobservant?

Answer 1

Most of the craters on the Moon are over 3 billion years old; no large new craters have been formed at least since the telescope was invented 400 yaers ago. What you describe is probably Tycho, which is very bright at Full Moon, but much less prominent at other phases. It is relatively recent, meaning 3 billion years ago, as oposed to 3.5 billion years ago!

Answer 2

There is no new crater that is large enough to see with binoculars. Any new crater that big would have made headlines.

Craters do look different depending on which phase the moon's in, because that affects the angle at which they're lit by the sun; hence the shadowing, etc.. It's possible that you never (or rarely) saw it lit from this particular angle.

Finally, the orientation of things (how the image is twisted around) is different through binoculars & telescopes. What looks like the "upper left quarter" in binoculars, would in general not be the upper left quarter as seen through a telescope.

Answer 3

the moon is hit by asteroids every now and then and the moon rotates every 28 days so its not possible you saw a crater and your binoculars are not powerful enough to see the moon that close.

Answer 4

The moon still gets hit from meteors from time to time. It could be old or new.. why don't you go over to www.spaceweather.com which is the NASA site and ask them?

Answer 5

You have just been incredibly unobservant.

Answer 6

i agree with rickB. there is no crater that can b seen with binoculars.ok if there is a new one it would b on the news dude.

Answer 7

If it's visible with binoculars, it would def be in the news