A boulder-sized meteor crashed into the moon in March, igniting an explosion which scientists say is the largest explosion ever seen on the Moon.
NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office is reporting the discovery of the brightest impact seen on the moon in the eight year history of the monitoring program. The meteoroid was said to have weighed around 90 pounds and was traveling at approximately 56,000 mph when it crashed into the moon.
"An object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, in the NASA announcement. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."
The explosion was so powerful that people could see it from Earth without using a telescope. The 40 kilogram meteoroid was traveling 56,000 miles per hour when it hit the moon, causing an explosion with as much impact as 5 tons of dynamite.
The flash was so bright that anyone looking at the moon at the moment of impact could have seen it without a telescope, NASA said.
"We have seen a couple of others in the 'wow' category but not this bright," said Robert Suggs, manager of NASA's Lunar Impact Monitoring Program at Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The program is essentially studying the where, when, and how often of meteor strikes on the Moon to determine the best time and location for future spacewalks on the Moon, if NASA ever decides to go back
