According to the International Astronomical Union, more than 9,000 craters have been seen to make the surface of the moon pockmarked by a series of meteors, asteroids, and comets, over billions of years. Even a large asteroid that hit the moon about 4.3 billion years ago wreaked havoc on the lunar mantle.
The far side of the moon, which no one ever sees from Earth, has a much higher concentration of craters than the near side seen. While the nearer part of the moon has fewer holes because its surface is covered by the lunar mare or maria.
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Mare is a vast, dark plain of basalt on the Moon, formed by the freezing of magma floods due to ancient volcanic eruptions several billion years ago. Named maria from the Latin word meaning “sea” by ancient astronomers who thought that part of it was the ocean.
The vast expanses of solid lava that we can see with the naked eye on Earth look like dark patches on the moon. This lava field likely covered a crater that was supposed to mark near the moon. The far side of the moon has almost no lunar maria, which is why its craters are still visible.
Scientists have long suspected that the lunar maria formed after a massive collision about 4.3 billion years ago. The collision created the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, a large crater with a maximum width of about 2,574 kilometers and a maximum depth of 8.2 km.
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It is the largest hole on the moon and the second largest confirmed impact crater in the solar system. However, until now researchers were unable to explain why only the nearer part of the moon had a lava field.
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