By 
February 4th, 2025
The view by moonwalking astronauts standing on the edge of the Vallis Schrödinger canyon is captured in this artistic rendering.
Image credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute/Michael Carroll
Earth’s Moon continues to surprise!
In a major discovery, a team of scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), an institute of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), have found two Grand Canyon-scale features on the lunar far side.
Similar in width and depth to Earth’s Grand Canyon that took millions of years to form, the epic features were produced in minutes during a period of planetary upheaval when the Earth and Moon were being resurfaced by impacting asteroids and comets.
The research findings were published today in Nature Communications.
Views of the Schrödinger peak-ring impact basin and two radiating canyons carved by impact ejecta.
Image credits: NASA\SVS\Ernest T. Wright; LRO LROC WAC/Arizona State University/NASA GSFC
Formed in minutes
According to lead author of the new research paper, David Kring of the USRA’s LPI: “Nearly four billion years ago, an asteroid or comet flew over the lunar south pole, brushed by the mountain summits of Malapert and Mouton, and hit the lunar surface. The impact ejected high-energy streams of rock that carved two canyons that are the size of Earth’s Grand Canyon. While the Grand Canyon took millions of years to form, the two grand canyons on the Moon were carved in less than 10 minutes.”
The features are called Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck. These deep groves were formed by rocky debris flung from the celestial impact that created the enormous 320-kilometer-diameter Schrödinger impact basin, near the lunar south pole.
Making use of imagery and elevation data churned out by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, the canyons were found to be 20 to 27 kilometers wide, 2.7 to 3.5 kilometers deep, and 270 to 860 kilometers long.
Width and depth of the Grand Canyon along the Bright Angel hiking trail from the south to the north rim contrasted with width and depth of Vallis Planck.
Image credit: Kring, et al.
Energetic ejecta
Co-author Gareth Collins adds: “The Schrödinger crater is similar in many regards to the dino-killing Chicxulub crater on Earth. By showing how Schrödinger’s km-deep canyons were carved, this work has helped to illuminate how energetic the ejecta from these impacts can be.”
The colliding, canyon-producing culprit, an impacting asteroid or comet, likely struck the lunar surface at about 35,000 miles per hour (55,000 kilometers per hour). The Moon-specific big bang yielded the Schrödinger impact basin.
Most of the excavated rock was ejected away from the lunar south polar region, which Artemis astronauts will soon explore.
Geologic samples
The Schrödinger impact debris did not bury the lunar south polar region. Therefore, astronauts will find it easier to collect geologic samples from an even older epoch in lunar history.
Image credit: NASA
Furthermore, the two canyons provide an opportunity to sample material that is more ancient; this material was once two or three kilometers beneath the lunar surface.
That extraordinary geology will be matched by extraordinary vistas, Kring adds. “The splendor of the canyons is so dramatic that if exposed on Earth, they would be national or international parks.”
For more information on this exciting find, go to – “Grand canyons on the Moon” at:
Posted in Space News
