{"id":275087,"date":"2025-11-06T12:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/275087\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T12:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:12:09","slug":"mysterious-flashes-of-light-crashed-on-the-moon-heres-what-they-were","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/275087\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious flashes of light crashed on the moon \u2014 here’s what they were"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bursts of light captured crashing into the moon last week were caused by dual asteroid strikes against the lunar surface that were likely strong enough to form hulking craters, according to videos captured by a Japanese astronomer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The moon bizarrely lit up late Oct. 30 and again on Nov. 1 \u2014 as astronomers assured that it wasn\u2019t a spooky surprise but a common interstellar phenomenon that one museum curator in Japan was lucky enough to capture on film.<\/p>\n

Two asteroids struck the moon on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1, footage captured by Japanese astronomer Daichi Fujii showed. X@dfuji1<\/p>\n

Daichi Fujii, an astronomer and curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum, shared the seemingly mundane footage of the first strike on Oct. 30 \u2014 but helped explain the visuals so that even the layman viewer could appreciate its wonder.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the moon has no atmosphere, meteors cannot be seen, and it lights up at the moment a crater is formed,\u201d Fujii wrote on X<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Japanese astronomer Daichi Fujii said that the Oct. 30 asteroid likely weighed 0.4 lbs. Morteza Nikoubazl\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

In the video, his telescope captured a small burst of light that slowly faded within seconds. Fujii said the asteroid likely came from \u201cthe Taurus Southern Meteor Shower or Northern Meteor Shower,\u201d which was approaching its peak over Halloween weekend.<\/p>\n

The first meteoroid was likely just 0.4 lbs \u2014 but excavated a 10-foot-wide crater on impact, Fujii told Space.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pixels were saturated, so it\u2019s possible the flash was even brighter than the recorded data suggests,\u201d Fujii told the outlet.<\/p>\n

The strikes created blips of light on the moon. X@dfuji1<\/p>\n

Fujii shared another video on Nov. 1 that featured a second asteroid hitting the moon. He said that the space junk likely deviated from the same meteor shower as the one on Halloween Eve.<\/p>\n

Because the moon has no atmosphere, as Fujii elucidated, there\u2019s nothing that can slow down approaching objects \u2014 including wayward meteors.<\/p>\n

The moon\u2019s lack of an atmosphere makes it easy for objects to hurtle into it at breakneck speeds. Annabelle Gordon\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Many approach at blinding speeds upward of 160,000 mph, which create powerful bursts of light and heat on impact.<\/p>\n

The resulting craters can be anywhere from tens to hundreds of feet wide, depending on the size and weight of the rock. One weighing 11 pounds can create a 30-foot-wide crater, according to NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bursts of light captured crashing into the moon last week were caused by dual asteroid strikes against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[6949,22523,3471,197,7042,79,193],"class_list":["post-275087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-asteroids","tag-halloween","tag-japan","tag-meteor","tag-moon","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}