Lunar Topography

The Moon is covered with an estimated hundreds of thousands to millions of craters, formed over billions of years by impacts from asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.

Of these, over 9,100 craters with diameters larger than 20 kilometers have been cataloged. Smaller craters, often too numerous to count accurately, dominate the lunar surface, with many overlapping from successive impacts.

The largest and most famous crater, the South Pole-Aitken Basin, stretches about 2,500 kilometers in diameter.

The Moon's lack of an atmosphere prevents erosion, preserving these craters in remarkable detail and offering insights into the history of the solar system.