NASA discovered a new crater on the moon as wide as a 3-story building, and it's probably Russia's Luna-25 gravesite
- NASA discovered a huge new crater on the moon with a diameter of 33 feet.
- The crater was likely caused by Russia's Luna-25 lander crashing into the moon last month, NASA said.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter discovered a new crater on the moon that's 33 feet in diameter — as wide as a 3-story building is tall.
It could be the crash site of Russia's Luna-25 moon lander, NASA said in a statement Thursday.
"During its descent" on August 19, "Luna 25 experienced an anomaly that caused it to impact the surface of the Moon," NASA said in the statement.
The point of impact where the crater is located is about 250 miles short of where Luna-25 was intended to land, NASA said.
Luna-25 was supposed to touch down on the moon last month, but the probe lost communications during its descent and crashed.
It was Russia's first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years. Had Luna-25 successfully landed, it would have been the first spacecraft in history to land on and explore the lunar south pole region.
Instead, India beat Russia to the punch and became the first country to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar south pole region in late August with its dog-sized moon rover, Pragyaan. The country had previously tried to land a craft near the lunar south pole, but it failed the first time.
Pragyaan's findings could be critical for learning how to mine moon water — a goal every moon-minded nation is eyeing.
And though India's 57-pound rover may be small, it "definitely puts them on the international stage as an emerging space power," Robert Braun, head of space exploration at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, previously told Insider.