Scientists confirm that a space rock hit the moon during the lunar eclipse

On January 19, 2019, a lunar eclipse dazzled observers across the Americas (and parts of Africa and Europe). After the event, some who had watched reported seeing a very brief flash.

Two days later, Chris Lintott, Oxford University astronomer, began talking about the eclipse tweeted"If you have images of the lunar eclipse at 4:41 GMT, check your image carefully … There could have been an impact during the eclipse!" Soon, high quality still images of the impact began to emerge. Later, some videos have also done.

Now, four Spanish scientists have published a detailed analysis of the impact on Monthly Notices from the Royal Astronomical Society who estimates the size of the object, its origin and the impact it left on the lunar surface. They based their estimates on the observations of five f / 10 Schmidt – Cassegrain telescopes in Seville, Spain. Clear weather provided the telescope with an uninterrupted view of the eclipse during the entire event.

"This is the first impact recorded unambiguously on the Moon during a lunar eclipse and discussed in the scientific literature," wrote the authors.

The night of the lunar eclipse in early 2019 did not coincide with a major meteor shower on Earth. According to their analysis, 99% of Spanish scientists were certain that the impact would be associated with a random or "sporadic" meteoroid. kind of meteors that people on Earth see in the night sky when there is no active meteor shower.

The meteoroid strike produced only a brief flash, lasting only 0.28 seconds, and reached a maximum magnitude of 4.2, about the same brightness as Ganymede, the moon of Jupiter, seen from the Earth. On the basis of various measurements and conclusions, the scientists estimated that the impactor had a mass of 45 kg and left a crater 10 to 15 meters in diameter on the Moon. This should be observable with a spacecraft such as NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which bypasses the moon since 2009.

Of course, astronomers have observed many impacts on the Moon during its history – indeed, these Spanish scientists are part of the Moon's impact detection and analysis system, or MIDAS, created to perform this type of observations.

These impacts can be quite brilliant because the moon lacks atmosphere. Thus, some impacts hit the lunar surface at a speed of 30 km / s, releasing a flash of light and heat visible from the Earth. (The impact of the lunar eclipse of 2019 has been estimated at a speed of 17 km / s).

Before NASA sends humans to the moon, perhaps permanently to a surface station, it is wise to better understand the frequency of meteoroid impacts on the surface. In fact, NASA concluded in 2016 that the rate of meteoroid impacts was higher than that originally predicted by scientists.