Record-Breaking Meteoroid Impact on the Moon

Last September, two telescopes captured a spectacular flash of light on the moon's surface lasting more than 8 seconds -- the longest and brightest flash ever confirmed on the lunar surface. Scientists have now attributed the record-breaking flash to a meteoroid impact and the resulting vaporization of plasma in a paper published online yesterday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Despite the huge flash, the cause was relatively small -- a rock about one meter across. None...