Lunar Explosion
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On November 7 NASA scientists observed an explosion near the edge of Mare Imbrium. The explosion was caused by a 12 centimeter-wide meteoroid that hit the surface at an astounding 27 km/sec, and producing a blast roughly equal to 70 kg of TNT. The image is a sequence of 6 false-color video frames.
Credit: Wes Swift/NASA
Rob Suggs and Wes Swift (Marshall Space Flight Center) happened to be testing a new telescope and video camera to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. As luck would have it, they hit the jackpot on the first night out.
Bill Cooke, a meteor expert with Marshall Spaceflight Center suspects the object was a Taurid, the same meteor shower that gave us many fireballs between October and early November. I was at first kind of surprised at how small the crater created is estimated to be, only 3 meters wide and 0.4 meters deep, too small for even Hubble to see. However if the surface is very hard it would take a big blast to create it. Makes me stop and think about what created the larger craters we can see from Earth.
Suggs is contemplating a long-term monitoring program. “We need to develop software to find these flashes automatically,” Suggs says. “Staring at 4 hours of tape to find a split-second flash can get boring; this is a job for a computer.”
how many times those this occur yearly and do any bigger ones reach earth’s orbit
How come I never saw one? Is it because I am living in the Upper Midwest United States?
That is frightining.I don’t want to see ,on Earth,what made those very large craters.Like Dude said,I also live in the Midwest.I didn’t see it.Let us hope Earth doesn’t get hit like that.
Actually it happens all the time, maybe not one of this size, but sometimes (fireball); the moon has no atmosphere to slow anything down, we of course do, and most of what hits, burns up in the atmosphere and becomes a “falling star”.
Booooom…wild
You’ve got an AWESOME blog, dude!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah….BANG!!!!!
It was a stroke of serendipity that they actually glimpsed that one. They happen all the time on the moon. Now that there has been set up a telescope to monitor ths type of activity, I suppose this will become commomplace. It is still very interesting, though. Incedentally, Tyler, If that had hit our atomosphere, it is unlikely anyone would have seen it as anything more that a bright meteor. Keep up the good work, Tom.
Glad we have a nice atmosphere to burn those things up. When I went out to view Saturn a few nites ago, it was a bit chilly for standing there long, however I did get treated to three meteorites flashing by!
Incredible pictures, incredible website! I actually recently started conversing with a friend of mine, who happens to eb an astrononmy buff, about how I can get started looking at the heavens. He showed me a great program on his laptop (Starry Nights I think), which I’m going to get today! Thanks Tom! I’ll be looking forward to many more gerat pictures and some pretty views of my own.