New Delhi : India's Chandrayaan-3 moon mission has discovered a 160-km-wide moon crater near its landing site. The Pragyan rover, currently exploring the moon's surface in the South Pole region, discovered the new site from data sent back to Earth. The site, rich in material accumulated from past impacts, has been an area of interest for lunar exploration missions.

The Aitken basin contributed almost 1,400 meters of debris, while other smaller craters around the basin added more geological material to the landscape. Scientists believe the new 160-km wide crater was formed even before the formation of the Aitken basin, making it one of the oldest geological structures on the Moon's surface. Due to its age, the crater has been buried under debris generated by later impacts and has degraded over time. The rover's high-resolution images from its optical cameras reveal key details about the structure of the ancient crater, providing a rare scientific opportunity to study one of the earliest geological formations on the celestial body.