New Crater On Moon Caught On Video

From A Far Away Land writes "NASA has released a video clip of a meteorite striking the surface of the Moon. From the article: 'On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon's Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy -- that's about the same as 4 tons of TNT," says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL.'"

Re:Colony on the moon

[FuturePastNow]

I think a meteorite striking a lunar base would be like shooting at an ant crawling on the side of a barn. From a mile away. With your eyes closed. Of course, the thing about random chance is that it's bound to happen eventually, but I don't think any astronauts will lose sleep over it.

Slashdotted ?

[Joebert]

Is it just me, or did NASA just get Slashdotted ?

How the hell do you /. NASA ?!

Re:So what are the odds

[Gabrill]

One Word: Atmosphere. It's why the Earth doesn't look like the Moon.

Videos make astronomy more tangible and real

[w33t]

I said it in another thread - but I do love it when we get to see actual video of astronomical footage.

Don't get me wrong, I love astronomy and the photographs gleaned from it are simply the most profound images ever seen by mankind. Please understand the significance of what I mean there.

But when we can actually see these objects in motion, in-vivo so to speak, it's just so remarkable!

I only hope that when the next generation space telescopes are in orbit that they will be able to capture the streams of x-rays shooting from the poles of neutron stars exciting the gas of the surrounding nebula like a gigantic cosmic northern lights.

I *heart* astronomy :]

Re:Do it like they do on the Discovery channel...

[whoop]

Unfortunately, it is far more likely to have a bomb go off in a major city from terrorists than to be knocked in the head by a meteorite. Human behavior is far more unpredictable and imminent than a meteor large enough to survive burn through atmosphere and do significant damage going unnoticed by astronomers worldwide.

Even then, do you want the fear that a meteor is going to kill you in 3 hours 45 minutes or to just live like a normal day, then kaboom?

And I'd rather my tax dollars that do go to NASA be spent on colonization. Inventions, energy sources, etc used to sustain life on the Moon or Mars will get ported back to Earth and help us out in the immediate future.

Re:Sagan's account

[letxa2000]

The significance for the monks was that the Bible was telling them that the earth and heavens were unchanged since Creation and would remain unchanged forever after. Here was evidence that what their faith was telling them wasn't true. Sagan said the event caused quite a bit of problems for the monastery as the monks tried to reconcile their faith and reality.

I've been surprised before, but on the face that sounds like hogwash. That a flash of light on the moon (when they didn't know what the moon was nor what the flash of light represented) that was visible for awhile and then disappeared would cause them to question their faith seems silly.

Re:Sagan's account

[Rimbo]

I think the obvious answer is that getting from here

As it was in the beginning, is now, and always shall be: for ever and ever.

to here

the Bible was telling them that the earth and heavens were unchanged since Creation and would remain unchanged forever after

is a non sequitur... in context, the latter does not necessarily follow from the former.

Re:Thanks for leting us know Nasa , 4 weeks after.

[Osiris Ani]

Is this how we will be warned if one is heading to hit the earth ? After the fact ?

Yes, the agencies monitoring our skies should alert the media every time a huge, ten-inch rock comes hurtling toward Earth. Thank goodness we now have actual evidence of interplanetary matter actually hitting to moon, so we can officially worry that they're not warning us of our imminent doom from... things small enough to disintegrate in our atmosphere.

Oh... never mind.

Re:Colony on the moon

[BAM0027]

I am not a physicist, but it seems like your statement is kinda naive. The fact is that the moon has practically no atmosphere to fend off particles of any size, so while this latest one was large enough to view from here, there _may_ be a large number of fast moving particles that could cause significant damage.

We don't notice it here on Earth at all because we have miles of gas to buffer the surface from most projectiles. While it might still be a very slim chance, I think it might be more frequent than you think and more destructive than you expect.

Quality

[porneL]

Is NASA using cellphone cameras now?
2.5mb of MJPEG noise reencoded as GIF to show off 5x5 pixel spot?

Re:Colony on the moon

[Killshot]

Yeah.. it's a pretty bad idea to put a base on the moon and have it be exposed to meteors. The International Space Station is much better and totally immune from such threats.