Overview
- During its April 2026 farside transit, the Artemis II crew recorded five faint flashes while Orion passed through a near-hour-long solar eclipse, and NASA has confirmed those sightings were lunar impact flashes.
- Scientists say the flashes were produced by inch-scale meteoroids of only a few grams each hitting the airless surface at tens of kilometers per second, producing brief visible bursts of light.
- NASA published an 814 GB Preliminary Lunar Science Report on October 7 that includes nearly 1,000 images and 521 minutes of crew audio to let researchers validate locations and analyze the events.
- Preliminary analysis uses flash brightness and duration to estimate impactor mass and velocity and places the chance of a similar direct strike on a Moon base at roughly one in 10,000 per decade.
- Beyond impacts, the Artemis II imagery revealed subtle rock and color differences and wrinkle ridges that will help pick landing sites and shape design and placement of Artemis surface habitats and equipment.