Huge Rock Crashes Into Moon, Sparks Giant Explosion

[Hum]

The moon has a new hole on its surface thanks to a boulder that slammed into it in March, creating the biggest explosion scientists have seen on the moon since they started monitoring it.

The meteorite crashed on March 17, slamming into the lunar surface at a mind-boggling 56,000 mph (90,000 kph) and creating a new crater 65 feet wide (20 meters). The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye, NASA scientists say.

"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."

NASA astronomers have been monitoring the moon for lunar meteor impacts for the past eight years, and haven't seen anything this powerful before.

Scientists didn't see the impact occur in real time. It was only when Ron Suggs, an analyst at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., reviewed a video of the bright moon crash recorded by one of the moon monitoring program's 14-inch telescopes that the event was discovered.

"It jumped right out at me, it was so bright," Suggs said.

Scientists deduced the rock had been roughly 1-foot-wide (between 0.3 to 0.4 meters) and weighted about 88 lbs (40 kg).The explosion it created was as powerful as 5 tons of TNT, NASA scientists said.

When researchers looked back at their records from March, they found that the moon meteor might not have been an isolated event.

"On the night of March 17, NASA and University of Western Ontario all-sky cameras picked up an unusual number of deep-penetrating meteors right here on Earth," Cooke said. "These fireballs were traveling along nearly identical orbits between Earth and the asteroid belt."

more

[KingCracker]

And we are only hearing abot it now?

[rfirth]

And we are only hearing abot it now?

"One Foot Diameter Rock Hits Moon"

Yeah, that will sell papers ;)

[Hum]

The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye ...

Uh-huh -- ufo crash :shifty:

[spenser.d]

And we are only hearing abot it now?

Scientists didn't see the impact occur in real time. It was only when Ron Suggs, an analyst at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., reviewed a video of the bright moon crash recorded by one of the moon monitoring program's 14-inch telescopes that the event was discovered.

The pictures don't make it look like much. Wish there were a decent video.

[dvb2000]

"One Foot Diameter Rock Hits Moon"

Yeah, that will sell papers ;)

but the article says it was a "huge rock"

:woot:

[Gaffney]

but the article says it was a "huge rock"

:woot:

Well it is quite big, you could carry it but not for long. If you were carrying it you would probably describe it as a huge rock.

[Raa]

Uh-huh -- ufo crash :shifty:

Pics or it didn't happen! :p

[Osiris]

This was the bugs first attempt at fliging an asteroid at us!

[The Evil Overlord]

Does a video of the event exist?

[statm1]

Even though its only a foot wide.. 88 pounds is not exactly light.

[The Evil Overlord]

This was the bugs first attempt at fliging an asteroid at us!

Time to send in the troopers!

[xbamaris]

Time to send in the troopers!

It was a weather satellite ;)

[chrisj1968]

we want HD shots!

[The Evil Overlord]

we want HD shots porn!

ftfy :p