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Explosion on Moon Spreads Moondust

Posted by Zonk on from the what-did-you-do-pinky? dept.

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."

3 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Danger? by Tx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  2. In Other News: Research stolen. Lawsuit Pending by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Moondust is electrostatically charged and notoriously clingy." --Dr. Tony Phillips, 2005

    "But moondust will cover you. Cover you." --David Bowie, 1996

  3. Re:How do they know the size and speed of the obje by Inspector+Lopez · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is other information available.

    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/tauri 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.

    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- 947.pdf

    Jicamarca http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acpd/3/6063/acpd -3-6063.pdf

    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/