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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
 Posted - 08/10/2008 : 14:35:23
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On ~October 4, 1978 four eye witnesses, (myself included), observed a lunar limb impact event that had an observed plume visible to the naked eye. All observed the event through a small telescope as well, and I watched +2 hours till moonset. The moon was a two day old crescent.
The plume was estimated to be 120 miles in height and had a bright center origin of ejecta that was just beyond the visible lunar limb.
I recently completed a photographic survey to find the origin of the impact, using the Lunar Orbiter 1968 images compared to the 1993-94 Clementine images. I found the probable source at 88.2W, 49.5N, inside the existing multiple crater site of Galvani B.
The skeptics pride and joy of debunking my observation will probably fall in these categories.
1. Lack of professional observations. Lack of record.
2. Lack of a massive meteor storm following the event from ejecta transfer.
3. Lack of evidence.
4. Lack of witness credibility.
Good skeptics should be aware of the importance of critical thinking and avoid the traps of fallacious logic. Argumentum ad ignorantiam, argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad populum and argumentum ad hominem - should all be familiar to good skeptics.
I'll address the pride and joy in order.
1. Lack of record
First attempts to report the event locally were discouraged because the claim professional observers would have seen and recorded such an event. To this date, no records of the event are found. I did not dwell on this event, but I did immediately bring it to the attention to McDonald observatory, and later, on no less than three occasions when having discussions with observatory staff. Dismissive and sometimes overtly rude reactions, so I dropped it.
Weather records show the majority of North America under cloud cover from hurricanes Greta/Olivia (now a dispersing tropical storm) and Irma, which might account for many scholars not observing the event. Airplane pilots should have seen the event, reporting it... maybe not so much.
2. Lack of a meteor storm
The lack of any major meteor outbursts records from ejecta in the following days, weeks or months that are not attributed to known meteor streams is somewhat distressing. The Taurids and Orionids have higher counts when comparing previous years records, but the records are sparse and speculative in the true origin of increased meteor activity.
"No meteor storms" had me dabbling in what is currently a statistical guessing game of ejecta transfer. I prefer direct modeling, and took the ejecta calculations from impact gods Hartman and Peter Schultz, and started plugging ephemeris data into Satellite Tool Kit to simulate ejecta trajectories from the moon.
The position of the moon and impact are not conducive to ejecta transfer to Earth. With impactor speeds over 12Km/sec, only a small percentage of material would have even become geocentric. This is not speculation, but modeling based on known and observed cratering and ejecta data. Most significantly, the Deep Impact ejecta plume trajectory observations and calculations backed up my lunar ejecta plume modeling. I am not a professional
Positions
direction of travel crudely indicated with < and ^
Earth --<O
Moon -------o^
Impact occurred near the arrow indicating the Moons direction.
Earth traveling to the left, the impact is facing away from the Earth.
If +96% of ejecta has 24% of the impactor speed, dispersing in a 45 degree expanding cone - the majority of ejecta is traveling away from Earth. Lunar escape velocity is 2.38Km/sec.
At an agreeable 17Km/sec average impactor speed, the expanding ejecta cone, at ~4Km/sec will not be pulled greatly enough to immediately intersect the Earth. The bulk of ejecta will eventually fall in to a heliocentric orbit.
There are many variables, such as impactor velocity, angle, impactor density, impact site composition and density, etc.. One thing is certain; The position of the Moon to the Earth is not conducive to the majority of ejecta to transfer to Earth, even at less than than average impactor speeds.
3. Lack of evidence.
Lunar comparison surveys have been done by others. My first available Clementine imagery was overexposed and saturated to the point no amount of processing on the available images could bring out the interior crater features of Galvani B.
I experienced this with the USGS Clementine Java Browser imagery in 2005. It was not until I tried the Clementine Browser 2.0 in June of 2008 did I see the new saturation levels applied to the imagery, allowing me to see the details of the interior of Galvani B.
While I do not know the data sets or image quality used in previous lunar survey comparisons by others, I do know what was available to myself, and it was not conducive to detailed feature examination.
The 1968 Lunar Survey images of Galvani B has a shadow feature that directly crosses the crater rim in the Clementine images. A careful projection alignment and examination clearly shows the incompatibility of the 1968 shadow feature with the 1993 crater feature.
For clarity, the Lunar Orbiter imagery is adjusted in gamma to enhance the shadow feature. For projection distortion reduction, all image projection was centered on Galvani B and reduced to a 1 degree area in all directions for examination.
The Galvani B interior has a new crater, ~3.2Km in diameter. The Clem UVVIS indicates very fresh ejecta, not space weathered.
The Clem NIR indicates a possible IR emission spectra, indicating the crater was still warm. The crater cooling models are currently based on non-impact, non-compacted lunar samples. Galvani B is a multiple impact crater that is likely highly compacted and of unknown element mixing from previous impacts. ~15 years later having a IR emission is not too much to assume possible, but it would be nice to compare post 1993 lunar IR imagery of Galvani B. China, India and Japan have post imagery available to professional researchers, that excludes me.
Here is what I have so far. Combined eye witness info, an astronomy simulation showing Galvani B is viable by exact location and date, a new crater feature within Galvani B and an exhaustive survey to eliminate other possibilities. The evidence is substantial enough to make the claim of a modern day impact event on the lunar surface.
4. Witness credibility.
At this point, there is enough evidence that a claim of Galvani B having a new impact crater that occured between 1968 and 1993 stands without any eye witness observations. Good skeptics as you should be, here is a bit on me and the other eye witnesses.
I was 12, a science addict and avid astronomer. I am now a satellite communications engineer. My specialty is communications electronics R&D, but I am experienced with satellite construction, launch and orbit dynamics and on station satellite control. I am not a professional scientist. I am a pugnacious skeptic and amateur scientist.
My sister was 8, now is a an accountant and musician. My father was 49, school teacher and Methodist minister, history major and psychaitry minor, now retired. My mother was 44, now retired.
I was very adept with the telescope even at that age. I was always impressed with the event, but had always been led to believe the event was observed by professionals. I have undertook this survey because of curiosity and for posterity.
I have had all the eye witnesses make a written account of their observations of the event and draw what they recalled as well. The written accounts match a long duration event that was seen as an eruption / impact originating on the lunar surface at the lunar limb. The images, with only variations in color and illumination, all match specifically for location and size of the plume on the lunar limb.
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Comparison to a previous lunar event have been made. The evaluations of the 1178 Canturbury lunar event records are also encouraged. I find some skeptical reports rather dubious in the use of clearly fallacious logic to come to concrete statements of fact. Omission of Korean meteor storm records and the use of questionable ejecta transfer calculations are clear to this skeptical eye.
I'll just add, the witness slander of the Carancas Peru impact event last year is strong evidence of the hostility many professionals have towards impact events that break the shell of comfortable entropy that many reside.
+++++++
Now in conclusion, this event did occur, and I have located the source with a high degree of certainty. The duration and specifics of the observations confidently excludes a terrestrial event or background solar / stellar event.
While I have given some reasons for a lack of record and meteoric supporting evidence, I would appreciate feedback on this.
I am unconvinced of ejecta transfer models that do not use direct modeling, or corrected calculations that have come about since Deep Impact. In my opinion, some older ejecta models should no longer be held as empirical because of direct impact analysis and improved models. Opinions on this are encouraged.
My lunar event report is a 2.7MB PDF and is available by request.
ALPO lunar impact coordinator, Brian Cudnick, has been sent the report. I've pushed the report out to ASU, LPI a select few crater and impact physicists and Brown University. Silence speaks volumes.
I figure it is time for some skeptics.
Do your own comparison study of Galvani B at - USGS Map A Planet, request mine, or both. I think you will find Galvani B holds an interesting impact crater worth a closer look.
Best Regards
Zeke
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 08/10/2008 : 14:49:33 [Permalink]
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Welcome to the SFN, Zeked!Originally posted by Zeked
Silence speaks volumes. |
For you, also. Why no website or other publicity for 30 years? Sure, you got "Dismissive and sometimes overtly rude reactions" early on, but why bring it up in such a confrontational way now? You obviously didn't "drop it" completely.| My lunar event report is a 2.7MB PDF and is available by request. |
Why not just publish it on a website?
According to Google, this is the first time that the phrase "multiple crater site of Galvani B" has been on the Web at all. Why unveil your discovery on a low-volume site like SFN, where we don't have many astronomy experts? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2008 : 15:14:12 [Permalink]
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This event really was just a curiosity that I needed to figure out. I was surprised there were no records of the event actually. I recently returned stateside and had a little time to burn on the research.
The Clementine Browser 2.0 came on line in June 2008 and had improved contrast that allowed me to complete the survey. Without this, there was no evidence. A claim needs evidence before it can be accepted. Eye witness accounts don't cut it in science.
If you suggest a place to upload the file for public access, I'll put it there.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2008 : 17:14:29 [Permalink]
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| Why not just create a web page of your own for it? Most ISPs give every customer 10 MB or so with which to build a personal site. Or, there are lots of free ones available, they'll just have ads stuck in. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2008 : 20:48:46 [Permalink]
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File hosting:
http://www.box.net/
Or any one of the various free web hosting services out there.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2008 : 22:55:53 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the interest Dave.
http://zeked.fileave.com/AModernLunarImpactcraterevaluation.pdf
I have uploaded the report for those wishing to review. It just adds pretty pictures and eye witness accounts to the information I have given above.
The true significance of such an impact event comes once one calculates a 3.21Km diameter crater would have been created from a 327 Megaton energy release, with an impactor 875 meters across, (Pi scaling using Melosh calculations). This is just using average densities, impact angles and velocities. (take care of loosing exponents when pasting in notepad).
I only wanted to find the origin of the impact event. Statistics, estimations and calculations are better left for professionals to argue, and the results vary widely.
It is accepted that no significant impacts have occured on the moon in modern human history. I think the best evidence to support my claim to the contrary will be professional image evaluation of Galvani B. For now I am satisfied with my own.
I guess it is not in my nature to "let it go". This kind of event really sticks with a person.
My free time to burn with this impact research project is at an end, but at least Google will give Galvani B some new hits.
Zeke
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 06:50:50 [Permalink]
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| I tried to find the original site in the Clementine data in the link you provided. I couldn't get an image nearly as good as the one you got. How did you do it? |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 08:20:43 [Permalink]
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Hi Hawks
Clementine Browser 2.0 is here http://www.nrl.navy.mil/clm/
This provides best overall contrast for Galvani B. This went online in early June and my jaw dropped when I saw how well Galvani B looked compared to my earlier survey image results.
USGS Map A Planet is here http://www.mapaplanet.org/explorer/moon.html
Until you zoom in close, the contrast is not the best.
As an example of the horrid saturation from previous Clementine images, I have an image from the Clementine Java Browser http://Zeked.fileave.com/whytheydidnotseeit3.jpg
I have found much of the raw images from Lunar Orbiter, and I am fairly certain that the USGS images could do much better with these as well, but overall the ease at which you can navigate is prefered.
Zeke |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 12:15:26 [Permalink]
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| The true significance of such an impact event comes once one calculates a 3.21Km diameter crater would have been created from a 327 Megaton energy release, with an impactor 875 meters across, |
Assuming you are correct, it's very good that thing hit the moon and not the Earth, especially in 1978. An impact like that could have touched off a nuclear war, not to mention the carnage such an energy release alone would have caused... |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 08/11/2008 12:16:02 |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 14:20:57 [Permalink]
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Effects of impact. Nifty scarry calculation.
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
The Vela incident 22 Sept 79, where a US spy satellite detected a flash, did cause some heated US response. This was just a detection of a flash. An impact this size would not destroy the planet, but an irrational response from idiot rulers certainly could do the trick.
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 17:15:39 [Permalink]
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Ok... Just a quick thought.
I can imagine nobody noticing the meteor on its way to the meet. I would admit that the impact was fast and none of the professional astronomers were looking in that direction and everybody missed it.
But such an impact, as you mention, would lift a lot of lunar dust.
This dust plume would takes some time to settle back down. It surprises me that nobody saw that... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 18:16:06 [Permalink]
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Numerous lunar impacts have been detected by NASA and amateur astronomers during the annual Leonid meteor showers when the moon is near new moon phase and at other times. Some of these are bright and have been recorded on video tape.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/01dec_lunarleonid.htm |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2008 : 21:28:58 [Permalink]
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Hi Simon
The event did not go unoticed, just unreported. As far as professional and amateur astronomers, in my report I only accounted for the cloud cover in North America. Right now, this very instant, there is very likely a ~3/4 moon in the night sky, and I can't see it at all because it is raining and cloudy here.
The report is focused on the eye witness of an event and finding the source. The surrounding circumstances for lack of record from others was breifly discussed and I agree is speculative. Observatory records are meticulous in observation records.
Could I be wrong? Most certainly. What does the evidence indicate?
Far from fast, the observed plume from the impact event was in fact quite long lived. We started observing ~4:30PM local and I continued to observed the plume, still very much visible to the naked eye, till moonset at 7:21PM. The probability of other observations is very-very high. Western Africa to Eastern Asia should have had opportunities to observe the plume.
I am certain there is other evidence that will tie in to the impact event - once someone has a reason to look. There should be evidence of the ejecta dust in images of the moon for many hours, possibly even days after the event. There is no lunar atmosphere, and aside from electrostatic suspension, all ejecta without escape velocity will fall back to the surface rather quickly.
Emission in the IR will be seen in images for a much greater length of time after the event and is probably the best yet discovered evidence lying around. These will likely be seen as smudges or blurs on the limb and are limited by libration, (E/W ~wobble), to give a good look aspect towards Galvani B.
The imagery from Clementine does show a possible infrared emission from the Galvani B crater. If this can be verified, the crater would almost definately be less than 20 years old. Research papers regarding crater cooling models indicate that ~15 years would be pushing the limits of observable IR emissions from typical lunar geology. Here is the NIR mosaic of Galvani B.
http://Zeked.fileave.com/NIRmosaicGalvaniB.jpg
I share your surprise in the lack of records of this event, however, four individuals did observe an event, the event matches a lunar impact, and there is a crater that matches the observation by location and timeframe.
Hi Chippewa
Here is a link to ALPO lunar impact program, the best coordinated effort for recording lunar impacts to date. http://www.pvamu.edu/Include/Physics/documents/lunimpacts.htm
So far, none of the recorded impacts in the Meteorics Impacts Search program have an observable crater feature. It is an amazing program, and the first I contacted for posterity of the information in my report. It should be clear that without professional vetting, my report is too speculative to be accepted.
So what comes first, the chicken or the egg? |
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Significant modern lunar impact
