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Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

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Re: Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

#4

Post by Crito »

deletes wrote: post #2

How would a potential base on the moon defend against that?

I don't think you do defend against that. Even if you buried your base, a direct strike by something that big and fast would almost certainly cause you problems unless you were very deep. The crater is 40 meters across and while it isn't as deep, the shockwave anything under it would have felt probably would have been pretty brutal.

A potential Moon base would count on direct strikes by very energetic meteorites being extremely unlikely.

Re: Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

#5

Post by centralwinger »

deletes wrote: post #2

How would a potential base on the moon defend against that?

I'd expect that it's such a rare and localized event that you probably wouldn't prepare for it.

But, wouldn't less meteorite crashes happen at the poles? Would that be the safest base location?

Re: Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

#6

Post by ChuckMcM »

spodek wrote: post #3

> "Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon Sparks Brightest Lunar Explosion Ever" Did they mean "... ever recorded?" I'm sure there were brighter crashes in the past four billion years, many of which humans saw.

Of course they did :-) It must have been exciting when that first year they started recording temperatures, every day was the hottest and coldest it had ever been on that day, just one record after the next, falling like raindrops.

I was somewhat amused that 'imaging the dark side and recording flashes' was a fairly recent idea. But we have gotten much better about being able to just throw a few multimegapixel imagers around for doing things like that of late.

Re: Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

#7

Post by cgrubb »

centralwinger wrote: post #5
deletes wrote: post #2

How would a potential base on the moon defend against that?

I'd expect that it's such a rare and localized event that you probably wouldn't prepare for it. But, wouldn't less meteorite crashes happen at the poles? Would that be the safest base location?

It doesn't look like there are fewer craters at the north pole:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2011/09/lunar...

Re: Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

#8

Post by altero »

It is interesting to compare energy released by meteors to bombs. This meteor was about 1 meter in diameter, and made 40m crater. The biggest artificial explosion made crater 500 meter wide crater. Mosquito bite compared to bit larger asteroid.

Re: Record-Breaking Meteorite Crash on Moon

#9

Post by _zen »

deletes wrote: post #2

How would a potential base on the moon defend against that?

I would think the ideal moon base would have multiple layers, the innermost an oxygen volume and the outermost a thick absorbing defensive layer against space debris, enemy/terrorist attacks. Dome structure perhaps.

Alternatively - mobile moon bases, and be super ready to spot space debris.

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