Posted on 06/14/2006 6:37:50 AM PDT by steve-b
There's a new crater on the Moon. It's about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.
NASA astronomers watched it form: "On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon's Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that's about the same as 4 tons of TNT," says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. "The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope."
Lunar impacts have been seen before--"stuff hits the Moon all the time," notes Cooke--but this is the best-ever recording of an explosion in progress:
The video plays in 7x slow motion; otherwise the explosion would be nearly invisible to the human eye. "The duration of the fireball was only four-tenths of a second," says Cooke. "A student member of our team, Nick Hollon of Villanova University, spotted the flash."
Taking into account the duration of the flash and its brightness (7th magnitude), Cooke was able to estimate the energy of impact, the dimensions of the crater, and the size and speed of the meteoroid. "It was a space rock about 10 inches (25 cm) wide traveling 85,000 mph (38 km/s)," he says.
If a rock like that hit Earth, it would never reach the ground. "Earth's atmosphere protects us," Cooke explains. "A 10-inch meteoroid would disintegrate in mid-air, making a spectacular fireball in the sky but no crater." The Moon is different. Having no atmosphere, it is totally exposed to meteoroids. Even small ones can cause spectacular explosions, spraying debris far and wide....
(Excerpt) Read more at science.nasa.gov ...
Women and children hardest hit. Bush's fault.
Wow! That is cool.
What a lucky observation.
Wy do I think of Ralph Kramden at a time like this?
Looks like a baby nuke hitting or a giant artillery shell.
There's a new one just outside Baqubah, too. About one week old.
Where Zarq's house used to be.
Well, cut my cheese!
VERY kewl!
The Moonbats should name the crater the Ann COULTER Crater..
I'd like to thank the architect of this Solor System for putting a large moon in orbit around the only planet with life on it. It takes a beating so that we don't have to.
I join you in giving thanks to our Creator.
Except this particular meteor, by the very fact that it was visible to our telescopes, had to pass us to get to the moon. I believe we've taken a few hits for luna, too.
I have standing $100 bets with a number of people that we will find LIFE (at least microbes) on another planet in this Solar System. Mars leads the pack of contenders with Europa and other icy moons as candidates. Any more takers? BTW, Sir Arthur C. Clarke contends that photos from Mars ALREADY SHOW EVIDENCE OF LIFE! Fascinating subject.
Cool - thanks for posting this.
Other life in the solar system there may be, but its going to take a lot more than Arthur C. Clarke seeing the "face" on Mars in a photo to convince most people.
The Earth is the bigger target/shield, after all.
OTOH, no moon, no tides, no tides, no tidal pools to concentrate chemicals, no concentration of chemical precursors to life, no life.
The Great Architect apparently like to play on the beach as much as the rest of us...
Clarke is, of course, a bonafide scientist, who invented the geostationary satellite in 1946. He points out that some of the recent Mars photos show what appear to be plant roots and seeds/fruits exposed on the surface. I have seen the photos, which are available online with a search, and they are intriguing but obviously not conclusive evidence of life.
Haha...
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