100 explosions on the moon

Not long ago, anyone who claimed that they witnessed the glint on the moon would be suspected by professional astronomers. Such reports are stored in L (lunatic). This is no more. During the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the light shining on the moon not only one but one hundred times.

According to Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Natural Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), 'Those are the explosions caused by meteorites hitting the moon. A typical explosion is as strong as hundreds of kilograms of TNT explosives and can be easily photographed with home telescopes. '

He gave the example by a video of a collision scene near Gauss Crater on January 4, 2008. The meteorite was a comet fragment of death 2003 EH1. Every year in January, the Earth-Moon system moves into the debris stream from this comet, producing the famous Quadrantid meteor shower. On Earth, the Quadrantids decay into light rays gleaming in the atmosphere, with no air on the moon, they collide with the surface and explode.

The first explosion location was observed on the moon.

"We started a monitoring program at the end of 2005 after NASA announced its plan to bring astronauts back to the moon," said MSF team leader Rob Suggs . If humans were present on the planet, the statistics of the frequency of the moon being impacted would be a great idea. Almost immediately, we discovered light rays. '

Bill said he would never forget the first discovery on November 7, 2005, when a piece of Encke's comet was about the size of a baseball hitting Mare Imbrium."This explosion caused brightness at 7, too faint with the naked eye, but a visible target for our 25cm telescope."

A permanent question, according to Cooke, is ' How can something explode on the moon? There is no air there? '

These explosions do not require oxygen or fire . The meteorite rushes into the moon with extremely large kinetic energy, moving at a speed of about 30,000 miles per hour. "At that speed, a pebble can also destroy a crater nearly a few meters wide. This collision melted the rock on the moon's surface like liquid lava - so it produced light rays. '

During meteor showers like Quadrantids or Perseids, when the moon travels through dense comet debris streams, the frequency of light rays can be as high as 1 service per hour. Collision decreases when the moon leaves these lines but surprisingly, this frequency has never been zero.

'Even when there is no meteor shower, we still see the flash of light.'

Map of 100 explosions observed since the end of 2005.

These 'extra-meteor shower' collisions come from a pile of natural waste space scattered in the solar system. The pieces of comet dust scattered and debris from asteroids poured into the moon in small form but in significant quantities. Earth is also impacted and this is the reason that on certain nights, some stars can be seen in an hour soaring through the dark sky even without meteor shower. In a one-year period, random collisions or 'seasons' exceeded the number of collisions from meteor shower cycles with a ratio of approximately 2: 1.

According to Suggs ' This is an important finding. This means that there is no time when the moon is not impacted. '

Fortunately, the astronauts have little danger.'The direct collision rate is not to be underestimated. However, if we start building big moon outposts with a lot of surface area, we have to carefully consider these figures and think about the rate of a crashed building ', Cooke said.

Second collision is more worrisome. When meteors collide with the moon, debris flies in all directions.A single celestial body produces a cluster of thousands of 'second' molecules that move at the speed of bullets. This may be a problem because while the direct impact rate is low, the second collision rate may be particularly larger. 'Second molecules smaller than 1mm can penetrate a cosmic shirt.'

Currently, no one knows how far and second molecules move. To find a way to solve this problem, Cooke, Suggs and colleagues are shooting artificial meteors into simulated moon dust and conducting measurements. This work is being carried out at Vertical Gun Range, NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California.

In the present time, returning to the lab, the team upgraded the original 25cm telescope into a pair of telescopes, one 36cm and 51cm in diameter, located at the Marshall Aerospace Center in Alabama. Many telescopes allow twice-and -3-fold inspection of faint rays and improve the data base of the study.

Suggs said 'The moon is still shining.' In fact, during the process of implementing this article, they discovered 3 more collisions.