Nasa scientists witnessed an explosion on the moon, they have revealed.
The blast – equal in energy to about 150lb of TNT – happened when a
meteor slammed into Mare Imbrium a lava plain called the Sea of Rains.
The space rock, thought to be about 5in wide, and travelling at 17
miles per second, blasted a crater 10ft wide and 1.3ft deep.
Nasa researcher Rob Suggs, of the Marshall Space Flight Center, caught
the flash on November 7 with a video camera and telescope.
It was the first night he had set up the equipment to monitor the Moon
for just such impacts.
He said it was from a stream of meteors called the Taurids that also
peppered the Earth with fireballs during October and November.
The fireballs burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere but the Moon has no air
to protect its surface.