A 'superblood Moon' eclipse might sound cool enough, but the total lunar eclipse of
January 2019 has now gone down in history.
For the
first time, astronomers and eclipse-watchers around the globe caught sight of a
piece of space debris - most likely a meteoroid - slamming into the surface of
the Moon as it passed through the shadow of Earth.
Such a scene
has been long-sought by astronomers, but proved elusive until now, even with
the frequency of lunar eclipses. Although meteoroids have been filmed hitting
the Moon before, lunar eclipses are often too bright.
But Jose
Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva's Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis
System (MIDAS) program in Spain wasn't leaving anything to chance this time.
He doubled
the number of telescopes the program usually has pointed at the Moon - from
four to eight - and crossed his fingers.
"I had
a feeling, this time will be the time it will happen," he told NewScientist. "I was really, really happy when this happened."
He caught
the entire thing on film, but he didn't end up being the first to declare it.
Perhaps
because the impact occurred in a darker region of the lunar surface, the bright
flash was caught by other observers too, and speculatively posted to Reddit
before Madiedo's confirmation came on Monday.
In a video
from Griffith Observatory, the slam, visible as a brief, bright flash, occurs
on the lower left part of the Moon while the scientists discuss the Moon's
colour.
It can also
be seen in the upper left in a live webcast from timeanddate, the bottom left
of this livestream from a man in Pennsylvania, and the bottom left of this
video here.
Although the
impact produced quite a bright flash, the rock itself was probably not very
large. According to Madiedo's preliminary estimates, it was probably only
around 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) in mass, and about the size of a football.
It just goes
to show that you're never too small to make an impact.
Comments
Post a comment