A newly formed crater on the moon is teaching us about our nearest neighbour鈥檚 complex geology. The crater, formed by an asteroid impact in 2024, is the largest that we鈥檝e ever watched form in real time.

It was first spotted last year, when researchers compared sets of images taken by in both 2024 and 2025, and was named McGetchin crater. According to models of how often impacts occur on the moon, one this big 鈥� about 222 metres across 鈥� is only expected to occur about once every 132 years.

While the moon has many larger craters, watching one as it forms and evolves presents a unique opportunity to learn about the lunar surface and its geology. 鈥淐ratering is probably the most common process that happens in the solar system, so we spend a lot of time trying to understand how a new crater will modify a surface and watching that degrade over time,鈥� says at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. 鈥淗aving a baseline for a pristine crater that can serve as our calibration point for how these processes start is really incredible.鈥�

Powell and his colleagues measured the surface temperature in the region around McGetchin crater, and found that the impact had formed a spot about 7 kilometres wide that is a handful of degrees colder than the rest of the area during the lunar night. These cold spots form when the lunar dust fluffs up after an impact, so it cools down faster after the sun sets.

Another team, led by at Intuitive Machines in Texas, found that the impact flung dust and rocks more than 120 kilometres from the crater itself. 鈥淥ver the last several years, we鈥檝e developed this understanding that these impacts modify more than just the region right where the crater is,鈥� says Powell. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really striking that a crater can modify the lunar surface to distances far larger than the crater itself.鈥�

This will helps us understand and study the history of the moon and other airless, cratered objects in the solar system, but it could also aid in future exploration. 鈥淚f we鈥檙e trying to send rovers or astronauts or build things on the moon, we want to understand the properties of the surface,鈥� says Powell. And watching a huge new crater form and change over time is one of the best remote probes of the surface we鈥檝e ever had.

The clearest images ever taken of the sun鈥檚 surface reveal striking wave patterns, reminiscent of those sometimes seen in clouds on Earth. Analysis of the patterns may improve our predictions of solar weather.

On 14 April 2025, with just a few minutes of their allotted time remaining at the聽Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope聽in Hawaii and with clouds fast closing in that would force the closure of the observatory鈥檚 lens cover, a team of astronomers collected a series of extraordinary images 鈥� the most detailed ever recorded of the sun鈥檚 surface, known as the photosphere.

Most remarkably, the images revealed, for the first time, wave-shaped vortices known as Kelvin鈥揌elmholtz instabilities (KHI) that had long been predicted to exist on the sun but had never before been observed.

鈥淭hese swirling, vortex-like patterns are universal, appearing in cloud formations, ocean currents and across the cosmos,鈥� says team member聽聽at the National Solar Observatory in Colorado.

鈥淎 famous example is [Vincent] van Gogh鈥檚聽The Starry Night, where the sky鈥檚 vortex structures closely resemble turbulent KHI structures,鈥� he says. 鈥淎 similar parallel appears in Hokusai鈥檚 famous woodblock print,聽The Great Wave off Kanagawa, where the curling crests of the wave echo the iconic shape of KHI billows.鈥�

Another member of the team,聽, also at the National Solar Observatory, says that while the existence of some KHI in the solar photosphere was expected, it was a surprise to see the patterns 鈥渆verywhere鈥� in the images they processed.

The scale of what they were seeing was extraordinary 鈥� the telescope is 150 million kilometres from the sun, but it could pick out objects just a few tens of kilometres in length on its surface.

鈥淒etecting and following the development of the 25 kilometre-size KHI vortices on the sun and identifying them as such is similar to identifying and tracking the motion of an average-sized ant on the ground from 160 km away,鈥� says W枚ger.

The KHI wave structures are formed on the boundaries of what the researchers describe as 鈥済ranules鈥�, structures between 500 and 2000 km in diameter, which are cells of rising plasma emerging from deep within the sun. The granules observed in the study were either close to a sunspot 鈥� a dark patch where magnetism blocks the escape of heat 鈥� or to one of numerous smaller sunspots called pores.

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The researchers think the KHI waves play a critical role in the dissipation and movement of heat. They may also influence the magnetic fields that drive coronal flares and other solar weather that can affect life on Earth and disrupt electromagnetic devices.

W枚ger says the sun鈥檚 magnetic field is potentially impacted by KHI everywhere across its surface.

鈥淭o better understand and eventually forecast the sun鈥檚 most disruptive behaviours, we first have to understand the tiny physical processes that drive it,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his discovery reveals one of those processes for the first time at a level of detail we have not seen before.鈥�

SpaceX rocket crashes into moon at 8700 kilometres per hour

A rocket launched last year is thought to have smashed into the lunar surface this morning, creating the moon's newest crater

聽at the University of Sydney says that not only were the astronomers observing the sun at a finer scale than ever seen before, but they captured 鈥渟omething that looks incredible鈥�.

鈥淵ou zoom in, and you zoom in, and you zoom in, and then you see fundamental physics at the scale of 19 km 鈥� that鈥檚 just amazing,鈥� says Wheatland.

He agrees that the discovery may help with understanding solar weather.聽

鈥淥ne of the outstanding problems in solar astrophysics is coronal heating,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 possible that Kelvin鈥揌elmholtz instability is contributing to that.鈥�

Astronomers have spotted one of the strangest-looking asteroids we have ever seen. The space rock, called 44 Nysa, was discovered in 1857, but it wasn鈥檛 until now that we had the observational capability to figure out its shape 鈥� and its shape is weird.

An E-type asteroid, which is a relatively rare type rich in a mineral called enstatite, 44 Nysa circles the sun in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is the brightest E-type asteroid we know of and one of the largest, with an average diameter of about 75 kilometres, which makes it a tempting observational target.

at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona and her colleagues used the Large Binocular Telescope, also in Arizona, and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to take a closer look at 44 Nysa. They used that data to build a three-dimensional model of the asteroid, and found that it seems to have three lobes, each separated from the others by a thin 鈥渘eck鈥� that holds the asteroid together.

While two-lobed asteroids are relatively common, trinary ones are much rarer. It isn鈥檛 yet clear how exactly it formed 鈥� it could have once been a more normal-shaped asteroid and then been battered beyond recognition by other space rocks, or the three lobes could have once been separate and then joined together in what鈥檚 called a contact trinary. Either way, its interior must be strong to have stuck together.

Another wrinkle in the story is that 44 Nysa seems to have a tiny moon, just about a kilometre across. In future observations, measuring the moon鈥檚 orbit could give us more information about 44 Nysa鈥檚 interior structure, and therefore its origins.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is finally beginning its mammoth survey of the universe. After a year of testing and calibration, it is starting the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which is poised to become the most detailed record of the universe ever captured.

鈥淭oday, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made,鈥� said Brian Stone at the US National Science Foundation in a .

For the next decade, Rubin will collect about 10 terabytes of data every night in the form of hundreds of high-resolution images of the southern sky. Each image will cover an area about 40 times the size of the full moon, and the completed survey will include nearly the entirety of the sky that is visible from the southern hemisphere.

This treasure trove of data will serve several purposes. The first, which has already begun, is to alert researchers to anything changing in the night sky, such as the appearance of supernovae or the motion of asteroids and comets.

鈥淢illions of alerts in just the last couple of months show that Rubin is up and running as a discovery machine,鈥� said at Stanford University in California, who is part of the Rubin team. 鈥淣ow we鈥檙e putting it all together.鈥�

These alerts have already led to the discovery of more than 11,000 new asteroids, and they are expected to result in the most complete inventory of solar system objects ever created.

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In addition to canvassing the solar system, Rubin will provide information about more distant objects, building a detailed map of the Milky Way galaxy and peering deeper into the universe.

An early-release image (above) shows a sea of stars, interstellar gas and even distant galaxies. Such deep, detailed images taken again and again over 10 years will enable researchers to study rare cosmic events and even gain insight into dark matter, dark energy and the expansion of the universe.