Bibcode
Ortiz, J. L.; Aceituno, F. J.; Quesada, J. A.; Aceituno, J.; Fernández, M.; Santos-Sanz, P.; Trigo-Rodríguez, J. M.; Llorca, J.; Martín-Torres, F. J.; Montañés-Rodríguez, P.; Pallé, E.
Bibliographical reference
Icarus, Volume 184, Issue 2, p. 319-326.
Advertised on:
10
2006
Journal
Citations
69
Refereed citations
62
Description
We present the first redundant detection of sporadic impact flashes on
the Moon from a systematic survey performed between 2001 and 2004. Our
wide-field lunar monitoring allows us to estimate the impact rate of
large meteoroids on the Moon as a function of the luminous energy
received on Earth. It also shows that some historical well-documented
mysterious lunar events fit in a clear impact context. Using these data
and traditional values of the luminous efficiency for this kind of event
we obtain that the impact rate on Earth of large meteoroids (0.1 10 m)
would be at least one order of magnitude larger than currently thought.
This discrepancy indicates that the luminous efficiency of the
hypervelocity impacts is higher than 10-2, much larger
than the common belief, or the latest impact fluxes are somewhat too
low, or, most likely, a combination of both. Our nominal analysis
implies that on Earth, collisions of bodies with masses larger than 1 kg
can be as frequent as 80,000 per year and blasts larger than 15-kton
could be as frequent as one per year, but this is highly dependent on
the exact choice of the luminous efficiency value. As a direct
application of our results, we expect that the impact flash of the
SMART-1 spacecraft should be detectable from Earth with medium-sized
telescopes.