What Just Hit the Moon?

Flashes on our natural satellite’s surface suggest the annual Geminids meteor shower isn’t just making an impact on Earth.

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Daichi Fujii can’t get enough of the flashy skies. The astronomer and curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum recently captured videos of bright flashes on the Moon, which coincide with the Geminid meteor showers. Ergo: Some of these fireballs may be hitting our rocky satellite. The Moon’s pockmarked face is no stranger to impacts from rocky debris in our cosmos. In fact, it’s been smacked by Geminids before—according to a 2015 NASA study, the Moon was hit by 19 Geminids in 2006 and impacted by 21 in 2010. Nevertheless, the recent footage may show such impacts as they happened. Fujii captured the footage at 7:41 p.m. and 10:34 p.m. local time on December 8, according to translated posts on X, formerly Twitter. Fujii “was able to confirm it [the lunar impact flash] with multiple telescopes,” according to to the post. “Bright meteors and fireballs have been appearing every day, but lunar impact flashes have also been captured one after another.” The Geminids are an annual mid-December meteor shower. On a clear night, the meteors can look like brilliant cosmic fireworks. According to NASA, the shower is “one of the best opportunities for young viewers since this shower starts around 9 or 10 p.m.,” and the shower is best viewed after giving your eyes about 30 minutes to adapt to a dark environment. The Geminids originate from an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon, which the Infrared Astronomical Satellite discovered in October 1983. Last year, a joint NASA-ESA mission took new observations of Phaethon and found that the comet-like asteroid’s tail is made up of sodium, rather than dust, potentially shaking up the origin story of the Geminids. 今夜はもう1つ月面衝突閃光がありました。2024å¹´12月8日22時34分35秒に自宅から360fpsで撮影し(スロー再生)、複数台の望遠鏡で確認できました。連日明るい流星や火球が流れていますが、月面衝突閃光も続けて捉えられています。 pic.twitter.com/iHUq9EuXQg — 藤井大地 (@dfuji1) December 8, 2024 Last year, Fujii caught NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2, or ICESat-2, pulsing lasers into the night sky as it flew overhead. A NASA instrument scientist and member of the ICESat-2 team later confirmed it was the first time the team had seen footage of the instrument’s lasers at work. Fujii also captured footage of a meteor impacting the Moon last year, causing a flash on the satellite’s surface similar to those captured this month. It’s not entirely clear that the recently captured footage shows Geminids hitting the Moon—though clearly something is. An expert from the American Meteor Society told EarthSky that it is possible the impact was caused by a Geminid, as the mystery object struck the Moon in the expected direction for such a meteor. If lying down and staring at the night sky on a cold December night isn’t your thing, worry not. The Perseids—another bright meteor shower in our night skies—occurs in July and early August, and may be more your speed. You’ll just have to wait a little while.

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