The Population of Young Craters on the Moon: New Catalog and Spatial and Temporal Analysis

We present a new catalog of the Moon's rayed and rocky craters from 5 to 130 km in diameter. Using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the JAXA Kaguya/Selene missions, we identify 571 unique craters with albedo, maturity, and/or thermophysical rays, or rocky ejecta, or all of these, located between 70 degrees S and 70 degrees N at all longitudes. We analyze the cumulative size-frequency distribution (CSFD) and spatial distribution of these craters and find that in general the albedo-rayed population and the rocky population are consistent with an aggregate age of similar to 1.2 Gyr, and both groups show deviations from the CSFD predicted by canonical production and chronology functions at diameters >30 km. Strikingly, we also find that although the rocky craters and craters with thermophysical rays show uniform spatial distributions with both longitude and latitude, the albedo-rayed craters show a strong equatorial concentration that deviates significantly from uniform and that is too large to be explained by analytical models of orbital motion.