Moonrise Moment

Surface glossary

What is a lunar impact crater?

Impact Crater is a depression formed when an asteroid, meteoroid, or comet strikes the Moon's surface.

A detailed lunar surface showing craters, dark maria, regolith, and a rille.
A visual guide to impact crater. Original Moonrise Moment illustration.

What it means

Impact Crater describes the Moon's landscape or the way we divide its visible surface. With no active weather to erase features quickly, much of the lunar surface preserves a long record of impacts and ancient volcanism. Changing light near the terminator often makes these features easiest to recognize from Earth.

Keep exploring

Surface Dark Side of the Moon

An informal and misleading phrase often used for the lunar far side. Both the near side and far side receive sunlight over a lunar month.

 Surface Far Side

The lunar hemisphere that faces away from Earth most of the time. It is not permanently dark.

 Surface Impact Basin

A very large impact depression. Many lunar basins were later flooded by basaltic lava and became maria.

 Surface Lunar Highlands

The Moon's bright, elevated, heavily cratered terrain. The highlands are generally older than the darker maria.

Sources and further reading

This definition was written in plain language and checked against these science references.

Moonrise Moment showing the live direction and countdown screen.

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