Small impact on the Moon observed from three locations

Simultaneous observation of the impact of a "small meteoroid" on the Moon, north of Mare Crisium, 0221:55.7 GMT, 1 August 2013, captured at the same moment by three observers using three telescopes in Switzerland, 10 km apart, and a fourth telescope in Rome 558 km away.  Observations by Raffaello Lena (GLR Group, Rome), using a 130 mm refracting telescope equipped with a Mintron video camera,  Andrea Manna (Cugnasco, Switzerland), with a 200 mm Schmidt Cassegrain equipped with a Watec 120N+ - and by Stefano Sposetti  (Gnosca, Switzerland) using two telescopes, a 150 mm refractor and an 11" Schmidt Cassegrain, each equipped with Watec 902H2  cameras.

Raffaello Lena, of the GLR Group in Rome, has documented the simultaneous observation of the exceedingly transitory flash of an impact on the Moon by three observers, using four telescopes equipped with CCD cameras, from three separate locations.

"On  August 1, 2013 at 02:21:55.7 UT, we observed a small meteoroid impact on the Moon's surface. The kinetic energy transformed into heat caused a brief and intense flash detected simultaniously in telescopes operated by R. Lena, A. Manna and S. Sposetti.

"The simultaneity of the flash observations, at the same position on the lunar surface strongly indicate the flash is unlikely to be mistaken for anything other than an impact."

The event was recorded by Raffaello Lena in Rome Italy, Andrea Manna in Cugnasco, Switzerland, and by Stefano Sposetti in Gnosca, Switzerland. The two observatories in Switzerland were separated by 10 km while Lena in Rome was 558 km from Gnosca.

The meteoroidal lunar impact detected on August, 1, 2013 at 02:21:55.7 UT was simultaneously recorded by  four independent video recordings. The duration of the flash corresponds with 0.08 seconds peaked in a brightness of 8.3 ± 0.7 magnitude. Synchronicity of the documenting images and related files was verified using GPS time inserters (KIWI-OSD) and an Atomic Clock Synchronization protocol.

The coordinates of the flash were determined to 73° (± 4°) East, 27° (± 3°) North, near the crater Seneca C.

"The flash probably corresponds to an α-Capricornids meteor stream, exhibiting favorable geometry at time of impact."

A report of the coordinated observing session is published in Selenology Today, HERE, and an Adobe pdf file with the particular of the event and observing session can be also downloaded HERE.

In addition, Lena reports, "some animations and data, are also presented on my website: http://lunarimpact2.blogspot.it/ ."

The phase of the Moon at the time the impact was observed at three locations on Earth, 0221.55 UT, August 1, still a considerably bright 29.7 percent illumination from a Moon, 23.63 Earth-days old in the early predawn. At time of impact, still late July 31 in North America, the Moon was 405,528 km distant [Virtual Moon Atlas v.6].

Related Posts:
Earth's Nightlight (June 26, 2013)
March of Time Paces Changes on the Lunar Surface (May 21, 2013)
Brightest impact recorded by NASA lunar monitoring program, March 17 (May 17, 2013)
LROC team identifies a new lunar crater (July 28, 2010)
Lunar meteor impact observations and the flux of kilogram-sized meteoroids (July 25, 2010)
The Lunar Geminids (December 10, 2009)
Impact Gap in the Moon's Southern Highlands? (May 22, 2008)

Small crater at the southern rim of Menelaus

Updated October 28, 2010 - 1739 UT

Simulated view looking west from 26 km over the southern edge of Serenitatis basin at Menelaus, in context. The Narrow Angle Camera frames from which the LROC featured image was cropped can be seen as the long, slightly darker rectangular strip running north to south over Menelaus' western rim - see full-sized image HERE. The bright fresh crater can be seen on the crater's southwest rim. The contrast of terrains straddled by Menelaus is stark, between Serenitatis on the north and the highly grooved mountains on the south. Mare Tranquilliatis is at upper right. Rimae Menelaus marks the boundary of basalt melt fills, older and later partial inundation. Menelaus ejecta blanket stretches into (and over) the older Serenitatis fill - and an interior deeper (-4200 meter) than the basin's fill would seem to indicate Menelaus is younger than most features seen here [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University - Google Earth (v.5.3)].

LROC Wide Angle Camera mosaic of Menelaus crater (16.3°N, 16.0°E), at the boundary between Mare Serenitatis and the highlands (dotted line). Broad ejecta rays extend along the mare-highland boundary and also in the NE-SW direction. In this image, the ejecta ray extending to the SW is easier to distinguish than the ray extending into Mare Serenitatis. The arrow marks the location of a recent 350 meter diameter impact near the rim of Menelaus. A full-sized view is HERE [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Lillian Ostrach
LROC News System

Menelaus crater (27 km diameter) straddles the highland-mare boundary at the southern margin of Mare Serenitatis. For years, scientists have wondered why Menelaus crater exhibits such a distinctive ray pattern. The distinctive ejecta pattern is partly a result of an oblique impact angle of the bolide that formed Menelaus. The ejecta rays are high reflectance relative to the surrounding terrain, but are these maturity or compositional rays? In most cases, a well-defined, high reflectance ray pattern suggests the relative youth of an impact crater. However, Menelaus crater formed in highland material, so Menelaus' rays may result more from compositional differences between the excavated material and the surrounding region, rather than the relative youth of the ejecta deposits. In fact, the optical maturity map for Menelaus crater, which is derived from Clementine multispectral data, supports this hypothesis because the crater rays are not visible, indicating that the rays are relatively mature (bright areas are immature).

Materials of different reflectance are exposed by a 350 meter diameter fresh impact crater near the southern rim of Menelaus (16.3°N, 16.0°E). The western wall of this small impact crater appears to be composed primarily of very high reflectance material. Image field of view is 400 meters, from LROC Narrow Angle Camera observation M126826332R, LRO orbit 3824, April 25, 2010 (Altitude 40.71 km, resolution 48 cm per pixel; illumination is from the right (west). A fill-size view is available HERE [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Small craters, like the one above, near larger craters (less than 1 kilometer in diameter) help scientists unravel questions about larger impact events. This small crater is visible in Apollo Metric images and also in the Clementine optical maturity map; in the maturity map, the crater is bright and thus the ejecta material is interpreted to be immature. We know that impacts into ejecta blankets sample the material excavated during crater formation, and this recent impact into Menelaus ejecta effectively exposes material, most likely of anorthositic composition that was brought up from the floor of Menelaus. Its reflectance is low because of its physical state (glassy), not because it is a different rock type.

So, what does this small crater tell us about Menelaus crater? Since the small crater exposes immature Menelaus ejecta, we know that the surface of Menelaus is mature and thus the Menalaus rays show up due to a compositional difference (highlands on mare) and not because of a maturity contrast. This small crater provides an excellent opportunity for future astronauts to study compositional and maturity rays at the same location!

Discover the ejecta patterns of this small crater for yourself in the full LROC NAC image!

Related posts:
Splendors of Mare Smythii
May 20, 2010
Rima Bode: Constellation Region of Interest
May 18, 2010
Small crater on the wall of Metius B
October 19, 2009
Ejecta sweeps the surface
October 11, 2009
Ejecta Blanket
September 23, 2009

LROC Featured Image in context, again, on the southwest rim of Menelaus, a crater that is itself on the southern tier of Serenitatis basin (the northern horizon - see full-sized image HERE). The range of elevations seen here, within the virtual environment of Google Earth's lunar digital elevation model, is dramatic. From overhead, there's little indication of the uneven height of Menelaus' rim, though its uneven height at upper left is close to the global average. Serenitatis basin (beyond the ejecta blanket of Menelaus, about thirty kilometers away) quickly levels out to en elevation gradually descending beginning at around -2,700 meters. But in the shadowed interior of Menelaus, about 10 km away, there are areas below -4200 meters. The featured image square is overlaid on the LROC NAC observation from which it was sampled which, in turn, is set within a regional WAC monochrome mosaic from many LRO observation opportunities [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University - Google Earth (v.5.3)].

The earthbound face extinction - Hawking

The human race must look to outer space within the next century or it will become extinct, Professor Stephen Hawking has warned [Daily Telegraph].

Richard Alleyne
Science Correspondent
Daily Telegraph

The renowned astrophysicist said he fears mankind is in great danger and its future "must be in space" if it is to survive.

In an interview he said threats to the existence of the human race such as war, resource depletion and overpopulation meant it was at its greater risk ever.

Although a long advocate of colonising space in order to continue man's reign, this is his direst warning to date.

"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million," he told the website Big Think.

"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth but to spread out into space.

Read the article, HERE.

The impact that shattered Santa Fe

Leslie Mullen
Astrobiology Magazine

Roberta Talache picks a shatter cone out of a rubble pile from the Santa Fe impact structure [Leslie Mullen].

On a winding road near Santa Fe, New Mexico, exposed mountain walls form an intricate mosaic of brown, yellow, pink and gray rocks that stretch up toward the deep blue sky. To the untrained eye, these rocks are just a random jumble of different shapes and colors. To a geologist, however, such rock outcrops can tell a compelling story about the distant past.

One particular outcrop on this Santa Fe mountain pass whispers a thrilling tale of ancient cataclysmic violence.

Evidence suggests that a large meteorite smashed into this area long ago. The force of the impact shattered the ground and tossed broken and pulverized rocks far and wide.

Read the Astrobiology
Feature Article, HERE.

Tubular structures on lunar surface, ideal landing sites

R. Ramachandran
The Hindu

Remnant tubular structures or tunnel-like formations from lunar volcanic flows in the past, which extend a couple of kilometres on the moon’s surface, could serve as ideal landing as well as human settlement sites for future lunar missions, including Chandrayaan-II, according to some new findings from India’s Chandrayaan-1.

These findings were reported on Monday at the Sixth Chandrayaan-1 Scientific Meeting being held at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) here.

Data from the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the Indian instruments on-board the spacecraft, has revealed one such volcanic tube in the Oceanus Procellarum area of the moon (central longitude 58.317 deg. W and latitude 14.111 deg. N). The remnants of volcanic tubes on the moon whose roofs have capsized and a trench or valley is created is called a rille system, which is a groove or long narrow depression on the lunar surface. The volcanic tube identified by the TMC comprises two cobra hood-shaped rilles, the longer one measuring 3.65 km in NE-SW direction and the smaller one measuring 0.73 km. The interesting feature is that these rilles seem connected by an intermediate stretch of a two km-long and 360-metre-wide uncollapsed portion (see picture), which seems to be the roof of the lava tube that did not collapse for some reason, said A. S. Arya of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, who described the findings at the meeting.

More significantly, the uncollapsed part is very close to the surface, only 160 metre below. Its hollow interiors could be safe spots for lunar habitation, or even parking lunar landers for protection from the harsh impacts of interplanetary material, meteorite showers, solar wind and radiation. “For future missions aimed at creating permanent base stations and human settlements on the moon, there is a need to identify such locales that have survived the onslaught of the past impacts and would provide safe shelters to human beings on the moon,” Dr. Arya said. For instance, the Japanese mission Kaguya discovered a vertical hollow structure, but that is not suitable for habitation, Dr. Arya said. In a horizontal tubular structure, however, any lunar vehicle can just move along the rille into the tunnel structure for safe parking.

But the TMC findings could even become the starting point for identifying suitable locations for immediate missions such as Chandrayaan-II, which plans to land two lunar rovers, said M. Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-II. Chandrayaan-II has set itself the ambitious goals of sustaining the two rovers in the harsh lunar environment for as long as six months. All previous missions have landed in the sunlit area and have not been able to survive beyond a few weeks. “We need to see how Chandrayaan-1 data can be used from an engineering point of view in terms of site terrain information and soil interactions to know where to land our rovers from this perspective,” Dr. Annadurai said.

Like Chandrayaan-1, its follow-up mission, which is likely to be flown during 2012-13, will also focus mostly on the higher lunar latitudes, Dr. Annadurai said. “From an engineering point of view, we need to look at the rovers spending longer night hours. For optimal power utilisation, they will function in the hibernation mode when there is no sunlight for generating power,” he said. “So a suitable site could be the edge of some crater or a site near such volcanic tubes where they can retreat for hibernation. But a cross comparison of data from different Chandrayaan-1 experiments can tell us much more than just the TMC data. And such a trend has been evident at this meeting.”

With Russia already part of the project, Chandrayaan-II is also likely to have international collaboration, especially with all the principal investigators of the various experiments keen on carrying the work forward by collaborating among themselves in the future.

The Lunar Geminids

Lunar impacts since Nov. 2005. Numbers 14-16 and 19-20 are Geminids. Number 18 is a probable Geminid. [NASA Meteoroid Environment Group]-Enlarge Image.

As observers pray for clear skies ahead of the 2009 Geminid Meteor Shower, this weekend, hoping with the dark sky afforded by a New Moon to detect as many as 100 or more meteors per hour as our planet passes through the long column of extinct 3200 Phaeton, I've finally hit upon an excuse I needed since the LCROSS impact on October 9 to use an illustration brought up in 2007 showing how frequently the Moon is struck with explosive force.

People have witnessed meteors at every opportunity from time immemorial, of course. Often deliberately, as many will this weekend or, as often happens, sometimes directly in their line of sight the instant after they happen to glance up on a starry night.. While we do have a record of these speedy darts here on Earth, and the stark testimony of crater saturation on the Moon's surface as witness to this regular feature of our place in the Cosmos, the Moon's surface is billions of years old. Reading the history of the inner solar system engraved on the Moon will require sustained exploration, and this is likely to require an extended human presence there. Before we return to the Moon for more lengthy stays, however, we're going to need to finally get a solid idea on the probability of small impacts, their frequency juxtaposed against their magnitude.

First observed (but unclassified) in the 1860's the Geminids have steadily increased each year since, until in our time they are well-known as the year's best. Investigators are keen to know if this year will be it's peak. On encountering the column of their orbit, clustered around the ancient orbit of extinct Near Earth Object 3200 Phaeton, whether a comet or asteroid is not certain, we appear to have gotten closer and closer to the main population of fragments. Presumably we will, at some point, arrive at the depreciating side.

Which brings me, for the second time since 2007, to the results of a sustained observation campaign sponsored by NASA to create a record of impacts on the Moon, which gave rise to the phenomena now known as "the Lunar Geminids."

"January 3, 2007: Another meteor shower, another bunch of lunar impacts..."

"On Dec. 14, 2006, we observed at least five Geminid meteors hitting the Moon," reports Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. Each impact caused an explosion ranging in power from 50 to 125 lbs of TNT and a flash of light as bright as a 7th-to-9th magnitude star.

"The explosions occurred while Earth and Moon were passing through a cloud of debris following near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon. This happens every year in mid-December and gives rise to the annual Geminid meteor shower: Streaks of light fly across the sky as rocky chips of Phaethon hit Earth's atmosphere. It's a beautiful display.

"The same chips hit the Moon, of course, but on the Moon there is no atmosphere to intercept them. Instead, they hit the ground. "We saw about one explosion per hour," says Cooke."

Re-read the report HERE.

Hartmann named 2010 Barringer Medal winner

Planetary Science Institute Founder William K. Hartmann, winner of the 2010 recipient Barringer Medal (PSI)

William K. Hartmann has been named the 2010 winner of the Meteoritical Society's Barringer Medal and Award, which recognizes outstanding work in the field of impact cratering.

Hartmann, co-founder of the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute, is an internationally recognized expert on impact cratering and the evolution of planetary surfaces. Among his many contributions to the field, the Meteoritical Society is honoring his discovery of the Moon's giant Orientale impact basin, a discovery he made as a graduate student in 1962 under the direction of space sciences pioneer Gerard Kuiper.

The society also is recognizing his development of a system of "isochrons," which uses the number of impact craters on various Martian geological formations to estimate their age. Hartmann has developed and refined the system during several decades of research at the Planetary Science Institute. As early as 1965, he used the method to correctly predict the age of lunar lava plains to be about 3.5 billion years old. This age was later confirmed by studies of lunar material returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts.

Although Hartmann has applied the isochron system mainly to the Moon and Mars, his long-term goal is to apply the concept to planets and satellites throughout the solar system.

Hartmann will officially receive the medal and award next summer at the society's annual meeting, which will be held in New York City in 2010.

In addition to his career as a planetary scientist, Hartmann also is internationally recognized as both a writer and artist. He has published several books in the area of popular science, as well as two novels. Many of his space-science-related paintings have been published in scientific and science-fiction books and magazines.

The Barringer Medal and Award, which is sponsored by the Barringer Crater Co., was established in 1982 to honor D. Moreau Barringer Sr. and his son D. Moreau Barringer Jr. Around 1906, the senior Barringer was the first to seriously propose an impact origin for the Arizona crater that now bears his name. It took several decades for him to convince geologists that this was correct, and asteroid impacts are now recognized as a key process in the Earth's geologic history and in the evolution of its plants and animals.

Read the Planetary Science Institute release HERE.

UNT astronomers find samples of "fireball"

A week ago, following news of twin expanding debris clouds, left over from the Cosmos-Iridium satellite collision over Siberia, in an apparent coincidence, a meteor shattered in the upper atmosphere and quickly expanded into a daylight fireball witnessed by thousands from north to south central Texas. Such events are more common than is generally known, but increased population density and the proliferation of digital camera devices speed "news" of such events, spread by dazzled witnesses. Fortunately, cameras capturing such an event are very useful in locating where the burned out remains of meteorites can then be located and collected.

Astronomers at the University of North Texas in Denton traced through the countryside south of Dallas-Fort Worth during the past week, along with private collectors, and claim to have collected "pecan-sized" remnants.

Regina L. Burns of Physorg.com has the Story.

Fireball Over Sweden

Post from astroengine.com

Just when we thought it was getting quiet, a fireball exploded over Scandinavia last night. What’s more, there is outstanding video footage of the event over the skies of Sweden (above). There are a huge number of sightings from Sweden, Denmark and Holland which is good, there’s a better chance of finding any debris that way in fact, if you saw something, contact the International Meteor Organization).

“The fireball occured on January 17th at 19:09 UT. It was a spectacular sight. Duration: 3 or 4 seconds, colours: yellow to green, fragmentation yes, brightness -10 or maybe brighter. I’m a meteor observer active since 1978 and I have observed almost 60 000 meteors since that time.” - Koen Miskotte, Ermelo, Netherlands.

For more, check out Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy article and SpaceWeather.com…

Impact gap in Moon's Southern Highlands?

A small sampling of one hundred 'official' impacts, mostly believed to be of cometary origin, recorded by specialists at Marshall Space Flight Center between 2005 and 2006

A quick glance at the Moon's nearside, tidally locked facing Earth, dramatically shows the Southern Highlands hardly devoid of impacts. Like most of the lunar farside, the impacts there over 4.5 billion years are well preserved and seem to saturate every available location. Close examination of the relatively smooth basaltic lunar "seas" of course, show a similar, newer and smaller saturation not as easy to recognize with the naked eye from Earth.

In the short term, however, and during a comparative 'blink of an eye' in lunar history, in a period of little more than a couple of years, NASA observations appear to show a familiar pattern.

Are some places on Earth's Moon safer from impact than others?

The possibility of lowering the probability of a mission being "impacted" in increasingly permanent presence makes this possibility worth study.

All meteor observers on Earth know the likelihood of seeing that sporadic flash in the sky, and not necessarily associated with an annual shower, increases after midnight. The reason is also well-known. At dawn, more or less overhead, observers are under the forward direction of Earth's orbit, perched on the front bumper, and at sunset on the back.

Driving through a swamp, bugs are impacted on the front windshield. To hit the back window, bugs would need to catching up and moving faster than the car. That comparison breaks down quickly when dealing with meteoroids and the Moon.

From Earth, the image above shows "100 impacts on the moon" of what were larger chunks of debris sufficient to release kinetic energy quickly turned into visible energy on impact, enough to to be indisputably register 400,000 kilometers away.

Apparently seen in this small sample is a similar pattern from what is observed on Earth. The patters seems to show a slightly higher probability of an impact on the Moon's leading limb in its orbit around Earth. And the sample might also show a "Meteor-graph" of the far wider distribution of cometary orbits above and below the ecliptic.

Accounting for the Moon always traveling along with Earth around the Sun also, from Full Moon through New, the lunar farside faces Earth's forward but, as always, invisible from Earth.

The apparent low incidence of recorded impacts toward the poles may reflect the Oort Cloud's distant belt, and it's lower number of comets above and below the primal proto-planetary disk, but it also might only show a lower likelihood of an impact's visibility at high latitudes, and as seen from Earth.

And there are seasonal visibilities and the inclination of the lunar orbit, prejudices of distance, obscuring abyssal crater walls and mountains, etc. But no recorded impacts on the Moon, at least during the sample period, upon the area of the Moon "closest" to Earth. So it might mean nothing at all.

So what about this apparent gap in sightings in the familiar highlands?

Along with being "closest" to Earth, which is always situated directly overhead (and also most incident to a crowded solar ecliptic where all the planets and most, but certainly not all the debris resides) the "Highlands" also appear to be short on impacts, at least in this sample.)

The moon shows recent and ancient, both large and microscopic, impact history in that area. So, given enough time, the impacts do come, but perhaps less frequently. An impact of the kind seen in this sample, coming from overhead, would almost always have had to pass through the Earth first. That would block a fragment of the ecliptic's debris field, of course, and make impacts ordinarily visible in a sample such as this trend toward those of higher, more oblique angles.

Does this mean there are far more impacts everywhere on the moon, with visibility trending toward those closest to being in line-of-sight with Earth? That would make the apparent gap a sign of something far more troublesome.

For whatever reason, this last possibility is a victim of Occam's Razor. The brief sample does correlate nicely with one predicted pattern. If so perhaps it does show an unlikely, but clearly seen nevertheless, an apparent lower likelihood of being "impacted" by a meteor the higher Earth is over your head. As with everything else, it may be worth further study.

From NASA's Science News, 100 Explosions on the Moon, May 21, 2008:

"They're explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon," explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope."

As an example, he offers this video of an impact near crater Gauss on January 4, number 86 on the list of 100 impacts recorded by the MEO team since their survey began in 2005. Larger movies: 0.8 MB gif, 5.9 MB avi."

Carancas: Per usual, was highly unusual

Every time we turn a corner in exploring the known Universe, we encounter phenomena that raise more questions than are answered. Often we are satisfied with the good answers, but whole schools of thought appear when the vines of hypothesis are cleared away.

It’s cliché, but that’s why they call them clichés. More often than not, they’re true.

And again this week we are reporting the results of studies from League City, Texas and the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference which are leaving specialists in their fields feeling like they’ve tried to sip from a fire hose, or, if you prefer, an effect once cliché in Washington, and a phenomena that may still be true; MEGO, an appropriately NASA-sounding abbreviation to indicate a topic’s “Glaze Factor."

My Eyes Glaze Over. So it was when the Martian Chronicle sounded a Heads Up to we Selenologists out here by wandering from breakout sessions on Sol IV, stumbling out of lectures from sheer overload and into sessions on NASA’s proposed Internationally-shared platforms and communications nodes when Moon Traffic Control really becomes a problem, NASA believes, in only a bit more than a decade.

We often forget the surface of Earth’s Moon is roughly the size of the land area of Africa. If the legend is correct that the only two registered automobiles in Kansas in 1902 actually collided at a rutted four-way intersection, then the odds will start getting tight, and sooner than most of those paying for this show can yet imagine. NASA is right to plan to avoid the expected.

But what of the unexpected?

Certainly we have a pretty good bead on the speeds of cometary debris and other regular hazards, including those that are man made, while traveling in Earth Orbit, Trans Lunar Space and possibly in Lunar Orbit. If Vanguard can survive in orbit for fifty years, then it follows that the incidence of truly anomalous fragments of matter are quite rare. Thanks to legendary Fred Whipple, we can even build robust shielding with gapped double hulls, for most scenarios.

But… and there is a but in every crowd, the surface of our Moon testifies of bombardments Grand, old and new, from every direction, and possibly with periodicity. And the existence of the Moon itself testifies of bombardment. We should take a hint, and remember that while the known Universe is headache-producing in imagined size, the Solar System, the Inner Solar System and the Earth Moon System in particular, is getting smaller all the time.

And our understanding even of our relationships with one another is still rather primitive by the standards of our ideals, let alone the challenges of survival on the Moon.

And what of Carancas? Inquiring minds want to know, and what we’re learned is whatever created the buzzworthy hole hewn out in Peru last September wasn’t your average meteoroid.

I’ll hand over, with Hat Tip to MIT’s essential Ksjtracker, for background, and with only these snippets as a teaser:

“last September’s news flurry of a perplexing, some say steaming, hole in the ground - rapidly filled by ground water - in the Peruvian country side. Some locals claimed the fumes made them ill. Last we heard, it was a meteor strike, but a puzzler. That still looks to be the case, a Brown U. professor told the Lunar and Planetary Society meeting in Texas yesterday.”

“The news, in brief, is that the Carancas Fireball was not merely a bolide from above. It must, it says here, have hit the ground at around 15,000 miles per hour to have made such a deep hole, thrown debris hundreds of yards, and, it turns out, left telltale microscopic shock damage in mineral grains. (Imagine hitting the ground so hard that the sand doesn’t just scatter, it breaks). And bam, there go standard explanations of what is supposed to happen to all smallish stony meteoroids when they hit the atmosphere - which is to break apart, slow down, and perhaps detonate Tunguska-style as they dump kinetic energy abruptly into the air. One then gets a debris field of meteorites, not one big plunk. (Iron meteors, in contrast to stony ones such as this was, do often stay intact.)”

“The prof thinks, somehow, this one may have morphed inside its fireball into a streamlined shape and punched through the air in one piece…”

“Reuters Maggie Fox reports - as the release has it - that the terminal velocity was more than 40 times what experts would have expected. The professor explains to her the pieces should have just hit, “plop” - nothing like what actually happened ; National Geographic News Richard Lovett writes it “punched holes in long-held theories” and has the prof. describing it as like a needle that pierced the atmosphere ; Tech Herald Rich Bowden (pretty small outlet but good hed: How a misbehaving meteorite changed the rules ) "

“Grist for the Mill: Brown University Press Release”