Overview
- The flash was recorded at 03:09:36 UTC on December 12 by the Armagh Robotic Telescope under the watch of PhD student Andrew Marshall-Lee.
- Armagh Observatory and Planetarium says it is the first video of a lunar impact flash captured in Ireland and only the second recorded from the UK.
- The brief burst is consistent with a tiny meteoroid strike, with the impact speed estimated at about 35 km/s.
- The event coincided with the Geminid meteor shower peak, making Geminid debris the leading candidate source pending confirmation.
- Researchers plan to extract the impactor’s size and location from the video and use the data to refine impact-rate models that support future lunar missions.