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Explosion on Moon Spreads Moondust
Jotii writes "NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Marethe Sea of Rains on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground. The main danger of such explosions is the static and toxic moondust, which is thrown around."
The main danger of such explosions is the static and toxic moondust, which is thrown around.
Danger to whom exactly? Should I be hitting the bunker to dodge that toxic moondust?
Oh no... it's the future.
"Moondust is electrostatically charged and notoriously clingy." --Dr. Tony Phillips, 2005
"But moondust will cover you. Cover you." --David Bowie, 1996
Obviously they can calculate the objects kinetic energy from the intensity of the flash. This will give them mass or speed, but not both. Perhaps the speed came from their assumption about the origin of the meteoroid, but that could still be wrong, of course.
BTW if anybody is interested in exactly what it was like to be walking on the moon in the 60's and 70's I recommend they have a look at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The main danger to what, the other moon rocks lying around within 10m of the impact point? Gimme a break, already!
The space.com headline is a bit closer to the mark... "Small space rock spotted hitting the moon".
--
Sometimes I think the only reason I read Slashdot is to complain about it
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Eh, if you know the kinetic energy wouldn't you know the *product* of the mass AND speed, but not either individually?
Been a while since I've taken physics but it seems intuitive...
Congress extends PAT RIOT act to include the moon.
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
In the "real" universe, it is Praxis that explodes, and we receive the Klingons for a peace treaty.
I guess now this means we'll have to take the iniative and go meet Chancellor Gorkon.
Rocks aren't really intercepted by the moon, they hit it because the moon lacks an atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere reduces rocks to harmless strims of heat.
[sig]
Oh wait... nvm.
Earth's atmosphere reduces rocks to harmless strims of heat.
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Tell that to the Dinosaurs
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
That's the first time I've heard a meteor impact referred to as "explosion on moon spreads moondust".
I'm no astronomer so I'm not sure it's written that way and posted here on Slashdot because it's really something notable just having happened, or it's just a one among thousands of meteor impact caught with a camera?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
> Explosion on Moon Spreads Moondust But there, they just call it "dust" :p
I suppose one might have to be careful when opening an airlock, lest moondust enter the airlock and then spread to the inside of the ship, but without an atmosphere, any dust blown up will settle quickly, so a simple rule of not opening an airlock right after anything nearby explodes should be sufficient.
Or is the risk that it will get on the outside of suits, and be hard to clean off, and so will be carried in?
Looks like santa missed earth ;_;
...the Apollo missions were faked, otherwise this could have hit some very expensive equipment up there and damaged it beyond repair!
So that's where Saddam hid the WMD!!!!!
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Yes it does. The force of the impact is great enough that it vaporizes the ground around it. This molten rock cloud then expands and rapidly cools releasing a huge flash of light as it does so. In short an explosion, albeit one without sound.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
More to the point, what's a "strim"?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There is other information available.
i ds.html. Since the Taurids are very well characterized, their orbital velocity is extremely well known, and thus the net impact velocity would be known with great precision, too. If it's one of the Taurids. Which is not so bad an assumption.
- 947.pdf
d -3-6063.pdf
For example, the date of the observation (7 November), and commentary in the article leads to the reasonable supposition that the observation was from a meteor in the Taurid stream http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/taur
Even without the Taurid assumption, you can look at other data to put some bounds on the meteor velocities. For example, there are excellent "head echo" observations by some big radars:
Arecibo http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acp/4/947/acp-4
Jicamarca http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acpd/3/6063/acp
and there have been several PhD dissertations in recent years exploring a variety of aspects of meteors, just from the plasma physics side (let alone the "meteor astronomy" side); check out Close and Dyrud from 2004 at BU, http://www.bu.edu/astronomy/alumni/phd.html.
The past decade has been a remarkably active time for meteor studies. There will be presentations about meteors at the URSI meeting in Boulder CO 4-7 Jan 2006, http://cires.colorado.edu/ursi/
July 21, 1969
TRANQUITY BASE: This is Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed.
Jesus H. Christ, Houston, we're on the fucking moon. Over.
HOUSTON: Roger. Tranquility we copy you. We cannot believe you
are on the fucking moon. Repeat. Cannot fucking believe it. Over.
TRANQUILITY: It was a smooth touchdown. The moon for Christ's
sake, the moon. Over.
HOUSTON: Roger that. You're clear for TI, walking on the moon. Over.
TRANQUILITY: We copy. Walking on the moon. Jesus. Over.
HOUSTON: We read you. Over.
TRANQUILITY: I'm on the bottom rung of the ladder. Just one more
step and I'm... (long pause).
HOUSTON: Tranquility?
TRANQUILITY: Holy (pause) living (long pause) Fuck!
HOUSTON: Tranquility? Do you copy?
TRANQUILITY: Are you fucking believing this? Over.
HOUSTON: We read you. Over.
TRANQUILITY: I abso-fucking-lutely am standing on the surface
of the fucking moon. I am talking to you from the goddammed
fucking moon. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket.
HOUSTON: Holy Shit.
TRANQUILITY: Holy mother of fuck. The fucking moon. Over.
HOUSTON: A-fucking-affirmative. Over.
the chronicle of gervaise
18 June 1178 (Julian calendar)
In this year, on the Sunday before the feast of St. John the Baptist, after sunset when the moon has first become visible, a marvellous phenomenon was witnessed by some five or more men who were sitting there facing the moon. Now there was a bright new moon, and as usual in that phase, its horns were tilted towards the east and suddenly the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of this division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the moon, which was below, writhed, as it were, in anxiety, and, to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the moon throbbed like a wounded snake... Then after these transformations the moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.
One (controversial) interpretation of this narrative, first suggested by Dr Jack B Hartung some 800 years later, is that it is a description of a crater impact in progress. The "upper horn split in two" is the apparent effect of a plume of dark dust or vapour, the "flaming torch [of] hot coals and sparks" describes the molten ejecta, and the way in which the rest of the Moon "writhed", "throbbed" and eventually "took on a blackish appearance" could be the effects of a temporary lunar atmosphere of gas and vapour created by the impact.
Use duct tape to close all holes and the magical moondust will not get you ... tonight
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