Feature: Solving a 50-year lunar mystery
By Phil Berardelli
UPI Deputy Science and Technology Editor
From the Science & Technology Desk
Published 2/23/2003 2:53 PM
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On a clear evening on June 25, in the year 1178, five monks in Canterbury, England, gazed at the slim crescent of the new moon and saw an extraordinary sight.
"Suddenly, the upper horn (the crescent moon was commonly described as having two horns, as a cow or bull) split in two," the monks reported. "From the midpoint of the division, a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out fire, hot coals, and sparks."
The monks were unaware they probably were witnessing the impact of an asteroid-sized body on the lunar surface, which some astronomers have estimated happens only about once every 100,000 years.
Yet such events might occur considerably more often, because in the early morning hours of Nov. 15, 1953, Leon Stuart observed -- and photographed -- something very similar to the event reported by the monks only 775 years earlier.
Stuart, then an amateur astronomer in Tulsa, Okla., saw a massive, white-hot fireball rising from the center of the moon's face.
As dramatic as the event seemed, and as unusual as his photograph was, taken with a camera attached to his 8-inch telescope, Stuart would have to endure skepticism about his find for the remaining 15 years of his life -- and 35 years beyond that.
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===>See also JPL's report.
Stuart's Event - NASA Solves Half-Century Old Moon Mystery.
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