NASA says huge rock crashed into moon, creating brightest lunar explosion ever recorded (Video)

NASA said on Friday that when a large rock crashed into the moon in March, it created the brightest lunar explosion the agency has recorded since it began monitoring lunar explosions.

According to National Geographic, NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, which launched the Lunar Impact Monitoring Program to track lunar explosions eight years ago, said that they have tracked over 300 explosions since the program began. However, the one that occurred on March 17 was so bright that the naked eye could have seen it. The flash created by the blast only lasted a second.

“We have seen a couple of others in the ‘wow’ category but not this bright,” said Robert Suggs, the manager of the monitoring program, which is based at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Telegraph reports that the rock weighed approximately 40 kg (88 lb) and traveled at a speed of 56,000 miles per hour.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office added that on the night of March 17, there were meteors heading earth’s way, notes Space.com. “NASA and University of Western Ontario all-sky cameras picked up an unusual number of deep-penetrating meteors right here on Earth,” he said. “These fireballs were traveling along nearly identical orbits between Earth and the asteroid belt.”

Earth’s atmosphere made sure that the meteorites didn’t hit the surface, but the moon doesn’t have that kind of protection.

“We'll be keeping an eye out for signs of a repeat performance next year when the Earth-Moon system passes through the same region of space,” Cooke explained. “Meanwhile, our analysis of the March 17th event continues.”