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Astronomer Offers Theory Into 400-Year-Old Lunar Mystery

Posted by Zonk on from the flash-from-above dept.

webdoodle writes "An astronomer at Columbia University thinks he has solved a 400-year-old mystery: the origin of strange optical flashes seen on the moon's surface. These spots, called 'Transient Lunar Phenomenon' (TLP) by the astronomy community, have confused moon-gazers since the time of ancient scientists. Arlin Crotts now thinks that TLPs are something called 'outgassing', a process where trapped gasses escape to the lunar atmosphere. 'To arrive at his theory, Crotts correlated TLPs with known gas outbursts from the lunar surface as seen by several spacecraft, particularly NASA's Apollo 15 mission in 1971 and the robotic Lunar Prospector in 1998. What he discovered was a remarkable similarity in the pattern of outgassing event locations recorded by spacecraft across the face of the moon and reported TLP sites.'"

5 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Radon? by calidoscope · · Score: 3, Informative

    Problem with blaming the outgassing on Radon is that the half life is only a couple of days. OTOH, all the helium emitted as alpha particles as part of the decay chain doesn't decay and may make up a good portion of the gas.

    --
    A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
    1. Re:Radon? by Mothinator · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, but radon is a decay product of uranium, which is much longer lived. I don't know if there is a lot of uranium on the moon, but I know the earth produces a lot of radon.

      It tends to collect in basements and give people cancer.

  2. Re:Tags by WalterGR · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...this article is tagged "things" (or at least it was when I viewed it). That may be the tag that conveys the least possible amount of information.

    That's because the summary contains a typo that reads "things." Certainly the "typo" tag would be more informative, but whatever. Welcome to folksonomies. Emphasis mine:

    Arlin Crotts now things that TLPs are something called 'outgassing'...
    --
    The Online Slang Dictionary
  3. Vid of meteor hitting moon. by zymano · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/13jun_luna rsporadic.htm

  4. Re:I'm more curious ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Plural subject gets a plural verb! Goddamn Neanderthals...