Crater Found From 1953 Lunar Impact

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Just a few decades ago, Earth's Moon was on the receiving end of an asteroid-sized body that slammed into the lunar surface. But finding telltale evidence from the celestial smacking proved elusive. The crater would be well below the resolution limit of Earth-based telescopes.

A research team now believes they've spotted the lunar leftovers from the impact, caught in images taken by a robotic lunar orbiter.

In 1956, an amateur astronomer -- Leon H. Stuart -- reported in the Strolling Astronomer, that he had observed and photographed a flash a few years earlier on the Moon. This event is the only unambiguous record of the crash of an asteroid-sized body onto the lunar surface.

Now, decades later, a study of lunar images snapped by the Clementine spacecraft as it orbited the Moon in 1994 has uncovered a candidate crater formed by the impact.

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