How the Man in the Moon Got His Enormous Right Eye

A new estimate for the impactor that created the Imbrium Basin puts the rock at the size of New Jersey

A map showing the location of Mare Imbrium.

WIKIPEDIA, CC BY-SA 3.0

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

The Man in the Moon has an enormous right eye: the crater known as the Imbrium Basin, which is 1,200 kilometers across. The cavity was created roughly four billion years ago during a collision with something big. How big? “About the size of New Jersey,” says Peter H. Schultz, a planetary geoscientist at Brown University who published a new estimate of the object's heft in Nature. To figure out the impactor's dimensions, Schultz and his colleague David A. Crawford turned to the surface features of the moon—in particular the grooves that emanate from the collision site, which were carved by flying chunks of the impactor. The researchers usedmeasurements of those grooves and laboratory experiments to calculate the rock's size, speed and impact angle. The updated magnitude is 10 times more massive than previous estimates, which were based on computer simulations, and is a reminder of how little we know about the early solar system, Schultz says.

Credit: AMANDA MONTAÑEZ; Source: "Origin and Implications of Non-Radial Imbrium Sculpture on the Moon," by Peter H. Schultz and David A. Crawford, in Nature, Vol. 535; July 21, 2016 (Imbrium Basin outline and diameter); "The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary," by Peter Schultz et al., in Science, Vol. 327; March 5, 2010 (Chicxulub impactor diameter); "Constraints on the Size of the Vredefort Impact Crater from Numerical Modeling," by E. P. Turtle and E. Pierazzo, in *Meteoritics & Planetary Science*, Vol. 33, No. 3; May 1998 (Vredefort Crater asteroid diameter)

By the Numbers

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

10 kilometers

Estimated diameter of the Chicxulub impactor, which struck modern-day Mexico approximately 66 million years ago and contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs.

10 kilometers

Estimated diameter of the asteroid that formed South Africa's Vredefort Crater, the largest confirmed crater on Earth's surface.

250 kilometers

Newly estimated diameter of the asteroid that created the moon's Imbrium Basin.

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American