Meteorite Strikes During Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse

Sunday’s lunar eclipse offered something unexpected, even among the seasoned astronomers whose life work is studying the moon — a sudden flash of light as a meteorite hit the edge of the moon just during the eclipse.

The lunar eclipse, called a “blood moon” because the orb turns a crimson or copper color when the Earth’s shadow falls on the entire moon, was rare enough because it occurred during a supermoon.

Space rocks of the same size hit the moon every week or so, Justin Cowart, a Ph.D. candidate at Stony Brook University in New York, told National Geographic.

But for that to happen during a lunar eclipse is “a rare alignment of infrequent events,” he said, adding this may be the first time a strike has been recorded during a lunar eclipse.

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A Reddit user saw the flash of light while watching what was known as the “super blood wolf moon eclipse” and reached out to the r/space community to see if others had seen it, too. The sighting lit up social media as others posted images and video of the flicker of light.

Greg Hogan, of Kathleen, Georgia, told Earthsky that he was “pretty excited” by what he saw when he reviewed his images of the lunar eclipse. The space rock hit the moon about 11:41 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, according to his records. See his photos here.

Many Scientists were initially skeptical — planetary scientist Sara Mazrouei of the University of Toronto told National Geographic she thought the flicker of light might have been caused by a camera — but a multitude of photos erased their doubt.

That delighted eclipse watcher who got an unexpected treat..

“This is something that people all around the world didn’t know that they were going to sign up for,” Noah Petro, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told National Geographic.

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See Also: 2019 Guide To Meteor Showers, Total Lunar Eclipse And Supermoons

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But Jose Maria Madiedo, an astrophysicist at the University of Huelva in Spain who posted video of the meteorite strike on YouTube, was scouring the moon in anticipation.

Madiedo, who also is co-director of the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System, said because the moon’s glow is dimmed during lunar eclipses, it’s a perfect time to learn more about space rocks that bombard the moon.

“The Earth and the moon are in such close proximity that observing the impacts on the moon can help us learn a lot more about the frequency of impacts on Earth,” Mazrouei told National Geographic. He recently wrote a paper about an ancient large meteor bombardment, first on the moon and then on Earth.

Sunday’s lunar event was also a supermoon — a recently popularized term describing the phenomenon that occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon’s closest approach to Earth, or perigee, making it appear larger than normal.

Lunar eclipses that occur during supermoons are rare, making Sunday’s extra special because it came almost a year after the Jan. 31, 2018, super blood moon — also a blue moon, because it was the second full moon (and supermoon) of the month.

Having two full moon blood moons in back-to-back years is an oddity, NASA planetary scientist Rick Elphic told Time magazine.

“It’s usually years between lunar eclipses that have supermoons in them,” Elphic said. “We just happen to be in a seasonal cycle where last year there was one and then this year, there is one and I don’t think there will be another supermoon eclipse for a while.”

Early Native American tribes called the January full moon the “wolf moon” because it was the time of year when hungry wolves howled near their camps. However, the Farmers’ Almanac notes that the notion of wolves howling at a full moon is “known to be more folklore than fact.”

Sunday’s was the last lunar eclipse of the decade.

Video/Jose Maria Madiedo, via YouTubre

AP Photo/Michael Probst

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