Space & Astronomy

Super blood wolf moon impact mystery solved

By T.K. Randall
February 3, 2019 ·  9 comments

January's blood moon was quite spectacular. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 Peter Gaylard As thousands of people gathered to catch a glimpse of the striking astronomical phenomenon back on January 20th, some spotted something rather unusual - a flash of light lasting a fraction of a second.

Now according to a new study by researchers from the Dominican Republic and Colombia, the culprit was a meteoroid approximately 30-50cm wide and with a weight of up to 100kg.According to the report, it hit with the force of 0.9-1.8 tons of TNT, leaving a crater of up to 15 meters.

"Our work was the result of a timely collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers," the researchers wrote. "The well-known skills of amateurs to collect and process high quality data of astronomical events, together with the capacity of professionals to convert this data into scientific results, is becoming a powerful driver of new scientific discoveries in astronomy."


Source: Sputnik International | Comments (9)

Tags: Blood Moon