January 4th, 2006
113638885961424180
Posted by
Chris in
Uncategorized
Starting with a bang?
Saved from the usual pretenious first post explaining how this blog will change the world by an interesting news story claiming a detection of the impact of a Taurid meteroid on the surface of the Moon. While this looks interesting, a comment Patrick made a few years back (when there were similar claims about the Leonids) springs to mind: would the typical particle size in a meteor stream be big enough to cause this large an explosion?
Meteor streams are essentially made up of material expelled from comets. As Deep Impact showed, comets are icy - there’s not much rock around and lumps don’t get thrown off. So where would whatever hit the Moon - presumably substantial - have come from?
on January 10th, 2006 at 6:48 am
Are you suggesting that it might not have been part of the Taurid stream but, instead, a coincidental impact?