Just braking on my computer about 9:30 on BING. The report says that the brightest and longest lasting impact of a meteoroid on the moon has been recorded on two Spanish telescopes from last Sept 2013. Described as a "huge" impact, a video IS available. Astronomy magazine has a piece that states the object was as big as a small car, while non-astronomically oriented news reports say the object was around 900 lbs. A VERY wide difference in opinions.
I finally found a short video and the bright spot is indeed very bright and long lasting. I also located a news piece that said the small Chinese rover's orbiter may have been in a position to have recorded the impact. So this is a big event, but the reportedly 130 foot diameter crater created by the meteoroid would lead me to suspect the thing was closer to the 900# object in size. Gravity is so much less on the moon that a 900# object striking it at 40,000 mph would kick up a huge plume of material, which then would be a very bright source of reflected light lasting perhaps a minute or more until all the ejected material fell back to the surface of the moon around whatever size crater was generated. Again, why haven't we been told of this new crater and why haven't accurate measurements been made?
Objects hitting the EARTH are called meteorites, but I believe they'd be known as meteoriods when similar objects hit the moon.
I suspect that the telescopes recording it on video may have been amateur scopes, but I have yet to find any confirmation of this. Professional telescopes almost NEVER turn towards the moon, but you never know. When the video caught the flash last fall, why is it only now making the headlines? It is also another subtle warning that we need to learn more about asteroids and find all objects of around 100-feet-diameter and up which can cause severe injuries or even deaths from striking Earth or our atmosphere.
Gotta go search some more. If anyone else finds a video clip to link to, please post it to this thread.
Bob
FINALLY, I have located the link to the video clip on the impact of a fair-sized meteorite on the Moon's surface. Check it out HERE:
The team of Spanish observers that recorded this event happened upon it realizing they had seen a remarkable impact. Observers have occasionally caught small impacts before, usually during known meteor showers where the dark side of the moon was face-on to the angle of incidence of passing specks of dust and small rocks. Since these articles were hitting the dark area of the moon they made small flashes that sometimes were detectable to Earth based telescopes. The object mentioned here is thought to be much larger, about the size of a small car, striking the moon at approx. 38,000mph, releasing energy equal to approx. 15 TONS of high explosives.
What a cool sight this would have been to witness first hand. Since the Moon gets hit by objects like these regularly, maybe an amateur observer from AOAS will either see of capture on an image something similar. You just have to be in the right place at the right time.
AOAS.ORG - Forum
http://www.aoas.org/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=2797