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Lunar Melt

When big asteroids hit the Moon, they can melt the rock they hit and leave a crater. This melted rock flows away from the new crater, picking up and moving chunks of rock, much like a river or beach waves can move sand, pebbles, and even big rocks. The size and placement of these now-frozen flows and the rocks they carried can tell scientists about how much rock was melted, its temperature, and how easily it flowed. 

The Lunar Melt project invites you to look at images of the Moon’s surface from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and mark the sizes and locations of impact craters and boulders around them. Your marks will help  reveal the rock fragments in melted rock flows, the directions and timing of the flows, and potentially help us harness these flows to better understand the Moon’s interior.

Go to Project Website about Lunar Melt

project task

Examine images

division

Planetary Science

where

Online

launched

2025

Black and white image shows now-frozen grey lobes of flow that came from the lower right. Sunlight boulders moved by the flow appear as irregular white lumps.
The remains of a once-molten impact melt flowing out of the crater. This is one of the best examples of very young (less than a few hundred million years old and probably a few 10s of millions of years old) impact melt flow on the Moon.
Credit: NASA/ASU/IM

What you'll do

  • Complete the in-project tutorial.
  • Click on an icon to choose a marking tool.
  • Click on images to map and measure craters and boulders on the Moon!

Requirements

  • Time: 10 minutes for tutorial
  • Equipment: an internet-connected computer, tablet, or smartphone
  • Knowledge: None; in project tutorial provides all the necessary information.

Get started!

  1. Visit the project website. 
  2. Fill out a short form to register with World Mappers.
  3. Complete the tutorial 
  4. Start mapping craters and boulders on Mars!

Learn More

The project website has pages of information on the data (images) the project is working on and the science being done by the project.

An artist’s rendition of the Moon in mottled grey shades, with a splash of bright white in the lower right, indicating the radiating paths of ejecta emanating from Tycho Crater.
The Lunar Melt project interface has mapping tools on the left (from top to bottom these are, crater mapping tool, boulder measuring tool boulder marking tool, eraser, and move tool), directions on the right, and an image of the Moon’s surface to be marked up in the middle. Along the bottom are pairs of close-up images of craters, showing what each looks like before and after the crater mapping tool has been used to mark the craters. The marked images show orange circles on the craters.
Lunar Melt project interface that participants use to map the craters and rocks in the central image.
Credit: Lunar Melt project

Get to know the people of Lunar Melt!

Portrait photo of a smiling man wearing a suit

Kirby Runyon

Planetary Geologist

Meet the Team
Portrait photo of a smiling woman with ong h air

Pamela Gay

Astrophysicist, World Mapper platform lead

Meet the Team
Portrait photo of a smiling person wearing sunglasses and backpack with clouds in a blue sky in the background

Susan Sakimoto

Research Scientist

Meet the Team