Comments on: Moonwhacked

By: R.Dhatt

R.Dhatt — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 08:20:25 +0000

NASA is reporting a new crater formed on May 2 2006 -- they have animated frames showing the event.

By: Railharry

Railharry — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:33:36 +0000

Just back from an Alaska Cruise. Didn’t see any good astronomical stuff, but did eat lunch with a guy using his satellite cell phone well away from any other cell phone source. Perhaps Dreyfuss had one of them.

By: Howard

Howard — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 14:52:40 +0000

Other evidence of witnessed moon impacts:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/leonids_crash_000621.html

By: Howard

Howard — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 14:49:34 +0000

Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Moon Impact Confirmed, 50 Years Later
Back in 1953, amateur astronomer Leon Stuart photographed what he claimed was an asteroid-sized rock smashing into the moon. Now NASA says the crater has been found. Such a collision only happens about once every 50 years, they estimate, meaning that Stuart is probably the only person in history to witness and document the creation of a moon crater.

By: EffJot

EffJot — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 19:30:17 +0000

Doesn’t really pertain to moon impacts, but today’s Earth Science Picture of the Day is a quite nice collection of full moon pictures over one year. Have a look at the animation, this shows the effects very well.

http://epod.usra.edu/archive/epodviewer.php3?oid=308256

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:42:31 +0000

About the Moon on the horizon for ZorkFox:
A full moon can be on the horizon (obviously, because it must rise), and the moon can be on the horizon at midnight (depending on where it is in its orbit relative to us), but Tom K’s point was that the moon can’t be BOTH full AND on the horizon at midnight.
When the moon is full, the Earth is on a line, roughly, from the sun to the moon. That means that when the moon is full, and the point on the Earth on which we are standing is opposite the sun (midnight), then the moon must be high in the sky.
The exception is the one Stuart points out where the moon could be near the southern horizon, although I can’t imagine a passenger on a cruise liner out for a stroll on the deck in the high arctic at midnight in, say, late December. Was Richard wearing a parka? Did his nose look waxy white?

By: ZorkFox

ZorkFox — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 00:13:30 +0000

P.S. I get the same error messages as appeared above in Beskeptigal’s comment. My post seems to have made it onto the board all right, but the “success” page told me all that garbage. Something wrong with the software, or something we’re doing wrong?

By: ZorkFox

ZorkFox — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 00:11:44 +0000

Tom K said: “Full moon on the horizon at midnight? Wow, that really is a disaster!”

Maybe I’m just too much of an amateur (I haven’t even made it all the way through The Basics of Space Flight over at JPL) but what is so impossible about a full moon appearing on the horizon? If you look at the link to the phases of the moon that BA made in his post, you can see that full moons happen at all times of the day and night. In fact, there will be a full moon on December 5 at 25 minutes past midnight this year (2006).

Tom K may, admittedly, have been calling attention to the fact that the full moon doesn’t (usually?) fall right on the evening of the 31st of December, but it can fall very close to that day (there will be a full moon on January 3, 2007, and on December 24, 2007). Near-full moons often look like full moons (also as stated by BA).

Am I missing something? We don’t even seem to need Stuart’s somewhat complex explanations. Granted, Hollywood doesn’t seem to know that full moons don’t happen every night, but what can we expect? It doesn’t rain continually in Seattle, either, but every time you see Seattle in a movie, it’s pouring day and night.

By: Beskeptigal

Beskeptigal — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:20:46 +0000

Post code error problem. It happened again. When I use normal HTML address I get the following error message, yet the post appears:

Regex ID: 3961 (crystalman23@earthlink.net) appears to be an invalid regex string! Please fix it in the Blacklist control panel.

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/badastro/domains/badastronomy.com/public_html/bablog/wp-content/plugins/SK2-/sk2_util_class.php:208) in /home/badastro/domains/badastronomy.com/public_html/bablog/wp-comments-post.php on line 55

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/badastro/domains/badastronomy.com/public_html/bablog/wp-content/plugins/SK2-/sk2_util_class.php:208) in /home/badastro/domains/badastronomy.com/public_html/bablog/wp-comments-post.php on line 56

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/badastro/domains/badastronomy.com/public_html/bablog/wp-content/plugins/SK2-/sk2_util_class.php:208) in /home/badastro/domains/badastronomy.com/public_html/bablog/wp-comments-post.php on line 57

I tried to educate myself on the xhtml code but need more work on it. Sorry for the blog post errors in the meantime.

By: Beskeptigal

Beskeptigal — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:16:41 +0000

I know this is doubtful but could any of the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment procedures have been visible in any way?

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/mlrs/dda.html

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 16:35:36 +0000

I did a Carribean cruise and had cell service (though I didn’t use it for fear of the charges) most of the time. A repeater on the ship shouldn’t be too hard to do. I guess the question is, what format would it be?

By: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:53:17 +0000

Just how well is Richard Dreyfuss’s cellphone going to work in mid-ocean, anyway?

By: Stargirl

Stargirl — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 20:09:40 +0000

One evening back in the seventies I had just stepped outside and looked up at a waxing gibbous moon in the eastern sky. In the twilight I saw a very bright streak heading west to east straight for the Moon. Just as the streak of light reached the illuminated face of the Moon there was a bright explosion followed immediately by a second explosion on the trailing edge of the Moon. For a split second, okay maybe a full second I thought I had seen an impact. Of course logic quickly took over and I knew that what I saw was a remarkable chance alignment of a bolide entering earthâ€™s atmosphere with the explosions juxtaposed in front of the Moon. It was an event I will never forget.

As a side note Iâ€™ve always thought that the reported lunar impact witness by the group of monks may have been a similar chance alignment of a bolide exploding in front of the Moon.

By: BMurray

BMurray — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:14:45 +0000

Lasers are better for moon messages.

By: Tim G

Tim G — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:57:34 +0000

Yikes! Now my first post looks anal.

BA, feel free to delete it.

Thanks.

By: PK

PK — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:34:59 +0000

Tim G, you’re assuming that the meteorite hit the moon full on, but it is more likely it hit the moon at a slight angle. Some of the kinetic energy would then have transformed into potential energy of bits flying off. Considering 120 tons is in the same ball park as 100 tons, this is probably what happens.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:22:39 +0000

D’oh! I wrote pounds when I meant tons. I’ll fix that right now.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:53:10 +0000

Sounds like the fun carnival game, Whack-a-Moon.

By: Eighthman

Eighthman — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:50:03 +0000

Sure would be nice to see the pictures the people on the side of the road were taking.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:50:42 +0000

A full moon on the horizon could be possible, although both may be ruled out be the specifics of the journey in the film (not seen it, no interest in seeing it).

Two scenarios spring to mind:
1) The ship is quite far north (i.e. artic circle), in midwinter. The path of the moon (and sun) across the sky could be very low and near to the horizon.
2) Time zone differential. The ship starts from, say Southampton UK, sailing to New York. Ship maintains UK time on board until it arrives at New York. But geographically the ‘time’ on board could be up to 5 hours different from the time to observers. So midnight as noted by Mr Dreyfuss could be close to 7pm New York time, so again full moon near the horizon is again possible.

Okay scenario 1 is quite weak and not sure about the journey specifics in the film for 2.

Just some random thoughts, feel free to shoot them down in flames if I’m wrong.

By: Tom K

Tom K — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:02:59 +0000

I posted the following in a previous thread about the “comet hitting the Atlantic Ocean”, but since this item is about the moon I thought I’d repeat it.

I went to see Poseidon the other day (on an IMAX screen no less) and noticed a bit of Bad Astronomy. It’s New Years Eve and everone is celebrating at midnight on the huge luxury liner Poseidon. Except Richard Dreyfus, who is outside by the rail hoping to receive a very important call on his cell phone.

He doesn’t receive the call and in despondence is about to jump over the rail, when he sees a giant wave blotting out the full moon which is low on the horizon.

Full moon on the horizon at midnight? Wow, that really is a disaster!

By: robert p

robert p — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 09:19:58 +0000

we could always nuke the Moon for entertainment on a boring evening.

By: Tim G

Tim G — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 07:26:05 +0000

More TNT than that!

KE = 0.5 * m * v^2

m = 1100
v = 30,000

yields 5 * 10^11 Joules.

One Megaton is 4*10^15 Joules.

So it would be 1.2*10^-4 Megatons, or 120 tons.