In the lower-right quadrant of the Moon you’re seeing Tycho, one of the most dramatic impact craters on the lunar surface.
Tycho is a young crater by lunar standards, about 85 kilometers (53 miles) wide, formed roughly 108 million years ago when a large asteroid struck the Moon at high velocity. Its youth is immediately apparent: the crater has a sharp, well-defined rim, steep inner walls, and a bright, complex central peak created when the lunar crust rebounded after the impact.
What really distinguishes Tycho is its vast ray system. The pale streaks radiating outward for hundreds and even thousands of kilometers are ejecta—pulverized rock blasted out during the collision. These rays cut across older terrain and darker maria, confirming that Tycho is younger than much of the surrounding surface.
Under a full Moon, (like the recent Wolf Moon on Jan. 3, 2026) the rays give the Moon that striking, almost cracked-porcelain appearance.
The impact itself was catastrophic. The energy released would have been equivalent to millions of megatons of TNT, melting rock on impact and throwing debris across much of the near side of the Moon.
Some of that debris even reached Earth as lunar meteorites. Visually, Tycho sits slightly south of the lunar equator, and when the Moon is full, it acts almost like a bullseye for the entire lunar face—one violent moment in deep time, still written clearly in stone.
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