Lunar Meteoroid Impacts and How to Observe Them
We all know that the pock marked face of the Moon looks the way it does because it was hit by meteors. But not many people know that this is still happening today. While the era of major impacts is over, lunar meteorites still cause flashes and puffs of g
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Brian Cudnik
Lunar Meteoroid Impacts and How to Observe Them with 116 Illustrations
Brian Cudnik Houston, TX USA [email protected] Series Editor Dr. Mike Inglis, BSc, MSc, Ph.D. Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society Suffolk County Community College New York, USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-0323-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-0324-2 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0324-2 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2009930463 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
Foreword
The genesis of modern searches for observable meteoritic phenomena on the Moon is the paper by Lincoln La Paz in Popular Astronomy magazine in 1938. In it he argued that the absence of observed flashes of meteoritic impacts on the Moon might be interpreted to mean that these bodies are destroyed as luminous meteors in an extremely rarefied lunar atmosphere. The paper suggested the possibility of systematic searches for such possible lunar meteors. With these concepts in mind, I was surprised to note a transient moving bright speck on the Moon on July 10, 1941. It appeared to behave very much as a lunar meteor would – except that the poorly estimated duration would lead to a strongly hyperbolic heliocentric velocity. Thus, the idea of systematic searches for both possible lunar meteors and meteoritic impact flashes was born. It was appreciated that much time might need to be expended to achieve any positive results. Systematic searches were carried out by others and myself chiefly in the years 1945–1965 and became a regular program at the newly founded Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, or ALPO. It was obvious that such searches were best attempted with the lunar background as faint as possible. Thus, one opportunity was on the earthlit regions soon before or after New Moon. In concept the best chance then was with a crescent as close to New Moon as possible, but in practice there were complications: the need for a dark sky free of dawn or twilight lighting and the requirement that the Moon be not too near the observer’s horizon. A second kind of opportunity came during lunar eclipses, with a pre
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