New Moon Craters Identified during the NASA Artemis II Mission

by ojosdelostigres

10 Comments

  1. ojosdelostigres on

    Image from this post, text from post below the link:

    [https://www.friendsofnasa.org/2026/04/new-moon-craters-identified-nasa.html](https://www.friendsofnasa.org/2026/04/new-moon-craters-identified-nasa.html)

    The Artemis II crew described two small, unnamed craters on the heavily pockmarked lunar surface. Calling down to Earth, they suggested provisional names for them. Just northwest of Orientale basin, highlighted above, is a crater they would like to name Integrity after their spacecraft and this historic mission. Just northeast of the Integrity crater, on the near and far side boundary, and sometimes visible from Earth, the crew suggested an unnamed crater be designated “Carroll” in honor of Reid Weisman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. She passed away on May 17, 2020. After this mission is complete, the crater name proposals will be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organization that governs the naming of celestial bodies and their surface features.

    NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist onboard launched on the Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    NASA’s Artemis II Mission is taking Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard their Orion spacecraft.

  2. charlesdexterward on

    Considering how many fresh craters there are, and the fact that they even witnessed some meteors hitting the moon during the mission, are we sure that building a base on the moon is the best idea? What happens if it gets hit by a meteor?

  3. Open_Detective_6998 on

    Huh, Mr. “Unnamed fresh crater” must have contributed massively to science to have multiple craters named after himself

  4. jellyjollygood on

    Someone doesn’t have to imagine having a job looking at the surface of the moon going “Ooo, there’s a new crater”, “And there’s another one”. Alas, the rest of us do

  5. Dayum… I hope Trump doesn’t rename ’em to something silly. After his cratering approval rates even!