The Moon has more craters than the Earth because it does not have a dense atmosphere to protect its surface from meteorite impacts. On Earth, the atmosphere burns up most small meteors before they reach the ground, thus limiting the formation of craters.
The Moon does not have an atmosphere like the one we know on Earth. As a result, it lacks that natural shield which, for us, burns up or slows down most meteoroids entering at high speed. When a rock from space hurtles toward the Moon, it strikes the lunar surface directly at full force, instantly creating a gigantic crater. And since nothing erases these marks (neither rain nor wind), each impact remains clearly visible for a very long time. That’s why our neighbor is so battered and displays thousands of perfectly visible craters.
On Earth, our planet is very active beneath its surface: plate tectonics, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes... All of this constantly reshapes the ground. But on the Moon, none of this happens. Its internal structure has cooled down, it has no more tectonic movements and virtually no volcanism. As a result, the craters formed by impacts remain intact for billions of years because nothing comes to renew or erase them. In short, the Moon is like an old, frozen page filled with ancient scars.
Thousands of meteorite impacts have shaped the moon over time. Its surface is pockmarked with craters created by asteroids and meteoroids of various sizes that regularly strike its surface at high speeds. When these celestial bodies collide with the moon, their kinetic energy releases extreme heat, vaporizing the lunar rock and forming a circular crater sometimes surrounded by ejecta, these projections of crushed rock. Unlike Earth, whose atmosphere burns up a large portion of small space objects before they even reach the surface, the moon fully endures these frequent collisions without filter or protection. Large impacts even create gigantic basins, visible to the naked eye from Earth as large dark patches called lunar seas.
Unlike Earth, the Moon has no presence of liquid water capable of shaping or altering its landscape. Here, rivers, oceans, and even rain constantly wear down the rocks, gradually smoothing out the craters and modifying the terrain. On the Moon, it's the opposite: no waterways or precipitation to clean or wear the surface, so all impact marks remain almost unchanged, even after billions of years. The result? Hyper-ancient craters that still look like fresh scars, giving our satellite the rugged and dusty landscape we know so well.
The lunar samples brought back from the Apollo missions show that most lunar craters are between 3 and 4 billion years old, a time when Earth was also undergoing intense bombardment from the cosmos.
Even though the lunar surface appears very ancient and unchanging, new small craters frequently appear. On average, about 150 to 200 new impacts are detected each year by various space agencies through satellite imaging!
On Earth, the largest clearly identified meteorite impact crater, known as the Chicxulub crater, measures about 180 km. It is widely associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
There is a theory that the Moon was formed from a giant collision between the early Earth and an object the size of Mars called 'Theia,' about 4.5 billion years ago.
Sure! Here’s the translation: “Yes! The Moon still experiences meteoritic impacts, although their frequency is lower today than it was at its formation. Some impacts are significant enough to be observed and studied by amateur and professional astronomers on Earth.”
With a modest-quality amateur telescope, it is possible to clearly observe several hundred lunar craters. However, visibility depends on the lunar phase: details appear particularly sharp near the terminator, the day-night boundary on the lunar surface, where cratered reliefs cast very pronounced shadows.
The craters on the Moon tend to remain intact for extremely long periods due to the absence of significant erosion processes such as liquid water or a thick atmosphere. However, very slowly, subsequent impacts can cover or slightly modify previous craters, but within a timeframe that greatly exceeds the human scale.
These light rays come from materials ejected at high speed during the recent formation of the crater, often appearing brighter than the surrounding surface. Over time, these materials slowly darken due to prolonged exposure to cosmic and solar radiation, indicating that craters with brighter rays are younger.
The Earth has fewer visible craters mainly because its atmosphere burns up or fragments many meteoroids before they collide, and because the Earth experiences intense geological activity (earthquakes, volcanism, tectonics), as well as erosive processes related to water and wind, which gradually erase the marks of ancient meteoritic impacts over time.
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