NASA recently recorded a Moon explosion caused when a meteoroid struck the surface of the Moon. The Moon explosion was large enough to be seen from Earth without the aid of a telescope.
"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," Bill Cooke from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office reported on NASA's science website. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."
The Moon explosion was visible from Earth for about one-second and according to NASA's science website "the impact site was glowing like a fourth magnitude star."
According to various media outlets meteoroid strikes on the Moon are not uncommon. This latest Moon Explosion is just one of a few hundred recorded each year.
CNN reports that NASA has been monitoring the moon for the past 8-years. The program to detect Moon explosions is part of a research project that will detect debris from Space that could hit the Earth.
Pix11.com says the first person to notice the Moon Explosion was Ron Suggs of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
"It jumped right out at me, it was so bright," Pix 11 reports Suggs as saying.
If you are wondering how there can be a Moon explosion when the Moon has no atmosphere capable of causing a combustion, NASA's science website gives an explanation.
"Lunar meteors don't require oxygen or combustion to make themselves visible. They hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that even a pebble can make a crater several feet wide."
The site goes on to explain, "The flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site."
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