NASA sees brightest impact on the Moon on record

Exactly two months ago, on March 17th, NASA astronomers captured images of a bright explosion on the moon — ten times brighter than an other lunar impact they've ever seen.

The space that Earth sweeps through on its orbit around the Sun is far from empty. It's estimated that roughly 100 tons of material from space burns up in our atmosphere every day, some creating brilliant meteors as they do. Just last year, there were a total of 2,126 'fireballs' — larger chunks of space rock that burn up quite spectacularly when they encounter our atmosphere — and those are just the ones that were reported.

[ Related: Huge asteroid to fly past Earth this month ]

Then, on February 15th, as a dramatic example of some of the larger objects out there and what they can do when we encounter them, a particularly big rock soared through the sky over Russia and exploded over Chelyabinsk.

We're not the only thing to be pelted by this stuff, though. The Moon takes its fair-share of hits too — hundreds per year.

These impacts have been seen for as long as people have been gazing up at the Moon, but NASA recorded their first of these explosions back on November 7th, 2005, apparently on their first night of testing their new telescope.

This latest impact was brightest one they'd seen seen since.

[ More Geekquinox: Two earthquakes shake southern Ontario, Quebec, U.S. ]

Measurements of the impact put it at about 30 to 40 centimetres wide and around 40 kg, traveling at close to 90,000 kph. A rock that size probably would have just burned up in Earth's atmosphere, but without much of an atmosphere to get in the way, this boulder slammed into the Moon's surface, causing an explosion roughly equivalent to 5 tons of TNT.

(Image courtesy: NASA)

Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter!