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Flash on the during the Lunar eclipse - static discharge?


gfellow

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Lunar eclipse flash - electrical discharge

"...a flash of light seen during totality has astronomers on the hunt for a new crater on the moon...."
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/01/meteor-hit-the-moon-during-blood-moon-eclipse-heres-what-we-know/

They will likely not find any new crater and here's why:

It hit me early this morning: When sunlight hits the Moon's surface, the temperature can reach 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius). When the sun goes down, temperatures can dip to minus 280 F (minus 173 C) - pretty extreme.

Typically, daytime on one side of the moon lasts about 13 and a half days, followed by 13 and a half nights of darkness. 

But the sudden eclipse of the Earth causes the temperature to drop precipitously. This causes a static charge cascade, much like that experienced touching a door handle in low humidity and experiencing a shock.

This rarely, if ever happens when the Moon experiences its slow, regular drop in temp in temperature during its 13 and a half day/night cycle, but the radical shift in temperature caused by the eclipse is the cause of the sudden static discharge.
Essentially, the sudden Lunar temperature variation causes electrons move from one surface to another through contact. Because the particular dust surfaces are both insulators, they'll build up an electrical charge. One object will have a positive charge (because it lost electrons) and one will have a negative charge (because it gained electrons). If one of the charged objects then touches a conductor, like a piece of metal, the charge will neutralize itself, causing a static shock.
All it takes is a small movement, like a minor avalanche of lunar dust, to trigger an immense discharge.

Thoughts?

 


 

Edited by gfellow
typo
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49 minutes ago, gfellow said:

They will likely not find any new creator 

Typo? Or intended for the religion forum? :-)

49 minutes ago, gfellow said:

This causes a static charge cascade, much like that experienced touching a door handle in low humidity and experiencing a shock.

But on a slightly larger scale if the flash on the moon was visible from earth?

Are there such strong electrical phenomenons on the moon?

Edited by Ghideon
Reinserted the smiley that the software removed
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1 hour ago, gfellow said:

Lunar eclipse flash - electrical discharge

"...a flash of light seen during totality has astronomers on the hunt for a new crater on the moon...."
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/01/meteor-hit-the-moon-during-blood-moon-eclipse-heres-what-we-know/

They will likely not find any new crater and here's why:

It hit me early this morning: When sunlight hits the Moon's surface, the temperature can reach 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius). When the sun goes down, temperatures can dip to minus 280 F (minus 173 C) - pretty extreme.

Typically, daytime on one side of the moon lasts about 13 and a half days, followed by 13 and a half nights of darkness. 

But the sudden eclipse of the Earth causes the temperature to drop precipitously.

 

An eclipse will not cause the temperature to suddenly drop that much that fast.  The reason the surface reaches those extremes at day and at night is that it is being  slowly warmed by the sun for ~14.5 days and then allowed to slowly cool for ~14.5 days.    An eclipse blocks the solar radiation for a bit, but the surface is still holding on to the heat that had built up in it up up til that time.  It can radiate that heat away only so fast, and you are not going to see a fast drop in temp of any great degree.

 

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1 hour ago, Ghideon said:

Typo? Or intended for the religion forum? :-)

But on a slightly larger scale if the flash on the moon was visible from earth?

Slightly larger scale.

Are there such strong electrical phenomenons on the moon?

If they find a fresh impact crater, and my speculation fails.

 

2 minutes ago, Janus said:

An eclipse will not cause the temperature to suddenly drop that much that fast.  The reason the surface reaches those extremes at day and at night is that it is being  slowly warmed by the sun for ~14.5 days and then allowed to slowly cool for ~14.5 days.    An eclipse blocks the solar radiation for a bit, but the surface is still holding on to the heat that had built up in it up up til that time.  It can radiate that heat away only so fast, and you are not going to see a fast drop in temp of any great degree.

 

You may be right - in which case they will shortly find the crater. Let's see what transpires.

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6 hours ago, gfellow said:
7 hours ago, Ghideon said:

Typo? Or intended for the religion forum? :-)

But on a slightly larger scale if the flash on the moon was visible from earth?

Slightly larger scale.

Are there such strong electrical phenomenons on the moon?

If they find a fresh impact crater, and my speculation fails.

 

Note: the bold text was not mine, see my original post.

 

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36 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

He says the object hit at an estimated speed of 10 miles (17 km) per second, and was 22 pounds (10 kg) and 12 inches (30 cm) across.

That would put the impact at about the equivalent of ~1/3 of a kiloton.  This is roughly 1/40 as much as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, or 30 times greater than the GBU-43/B "Mother of all bombs", the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in US arsenal.

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1 hour ago, Janus said:

 

That would put the impact at about the equivalent of ~1/3 of a kiloton.  This is roughly 1/40 as much as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, or 30 times greater than the GBU-43/B "Mother of all bombs", the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in US arsenal.

Has an impact crater been found?

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4 hours ago, gfellow said:

Has an impact crater been found?

Even if were possible to point the Hubble telescope at the Moon, it could not resolve anything smaller than ~100m across.  The energy of this impact would not make a crater anywhere near that size.

The Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter could likely detect it, but it is on a prescribed polar orbit, which may have already mapped that region.  If not, we would have to wait until it map the impact point and hope to recognize what would be a fresh crater.

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