During their historic lunar flyby, astronauts on NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission witnessed meteorites striking the rugged surface of the Moon, a sight that has piqued scientists\u2019 curiosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was definitely impact flashes on the moon. And Jeremy (Hansen) just saw another one,\u201d mission commander Reid Wiseman reported on Monday while flying around the Moon \u2014 the first such journey by humans in more than half a century.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazed,\u201d replied Kelsey Young, the mission\u2019s lunar science lead, as she followed the spacecraft from more than 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away on Earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I expected to have the crew see any on this mission, so you probably saw the surprise and shock on my face,\u201d she said, recounting the strikes at a press briefing the next day.<\/p>\n
Among NASA\u2019s team in Houston, there were \u201caudible screams of delight\u201d from scientists when the crew described flashes of light caused by meteorite impact, Young said.<\/p>\n
The phenomenon is \u201csomething that we have not witnessed often,\u201d the mission\u2019s backup astronaut Jenni Gibbons told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were really high priority science for us, so the fact that they saw four or five was just outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018No doubt\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
As the astronauts hurtled towards home, NASA asked them on Tuesday about the meteorite strikes they saw during their nearly seven-hour observation period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere they prolonged? And did you notice any color?\u201d Young asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pinprick of light,\u201d replied Canadian crew member Hansen. \u201cI would suspect there were a lot more of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say they were a millisecond, like the fastest a camera shutter can open and close,\u201d added Wiseman, who said the flashes were \u201cwhite to bluish white.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me there was no doubt we were seeing it, and we were all seeing it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
According to NASA\u2019s tally, the team \u2014 which broke the record for the furthest distance from Earth during their flyby \u2014 reported a total of six meteorite impacts on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n
Ground crews are now working to match these observations with data from a satellite orbiting the Moon, said Young, adding that the majority of the sightings took place during a solar eclipse, when the Moon passed in front of the Sun.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Challenge\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m personally\u2026 surprised they would see that many, although they (had) been trained to look for them,\u201d said Bruce Betts, chief scientist at the Planetary Society.<\/p>\n
According to Betts, the descriptions will allow scientists to \u201cget some idea of the frequency of impact\u201d as well as the size of the projectiles.<\/p>\n
One question was what size an object needed to be to create a flash visible to the astronauts, Betts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a piece of dust, but it\u2019s not a meter-size boulder, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
The observations raise questions and show that the \u201cdaily flux of meteors should be monitored more closely in the future before a lunar base is established,\u201d said Peter Schultz, Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences at Brown University.<\/p>\n
On Earth, smaller objects \u201cburn up high in the\u2026 atmosphere due to friction\u201d before they reach the ground, noted Betts, which is not the case on Earth\u2019s natural satellite.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is more of a challenge on the Moon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During their historic lunar flyby, astronauts on NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission witnessed meteorites striking the rugged surface of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,3389,210250,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-594973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-international","11":"tag-mna","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}