Abstract
In the last few chapters, we have been looking closely at different types of surface features. In this chapter, we will once again pull back from the surface of the Moon and look from a distance to observe unusual temporary events occurring on the Moon. You will notice that, as you observe over time, lunar features will seem to change appearance in predictable ways from night to night, due to the changing angle of solar illumination, and the interplay of light and shadows. These cyclical changes are regular from one lunation to the next, but lunar observers have reported, since A.D. 557, over 3000 unusual and unanticipated short-duration “lunar events” that have collectively become known as Lunar Transient Phenomena or Phenomenon (LTP). (In England they use the term Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) to describe these observed lunar abnormalities). Observed TLPs are apparently rare events. Though there are over 33,000 craters on the nearside, that can be observed in amateur instruments, LTP have been reported in slightly less than 200 features at least once with about 80 percent of all observations having taken place in less than 12 of those 200. Sixty percent of the reported events are found in only six locations.
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- 1.
Winifred Sawtell Cameron, “Manifestations and Possible Sources of Lunar Transient Phenomena (LTP),” Conference on Lunar Interactions of the Interplanetary Plasma with the Modern and Ancient Moon (1971), 41.
- 2.
Ibid.
- 3.
The DDEs were also known as the Dust, Thermal, and Radiation and Thermal Engineering Measurements (DTREM).
- 4.
Monique Hollick and Brian J. O’Brien, “Lunar Weather Measurement at Three Apollo Sites 1969–1976” Space Weather 11 (November 2013), 1–10.
- 5.
Leon H. Stuart, “A Photo-Visual Observation of an Impact of a Large Meteorite on the Moon” The Strolling Astronomer 10 (3 & 4) (March–April 1956), 42, 43. The same article appeared in the Journal of the International Lunar Society 1 (No. 1) (March 1957), 6, 7.
- 6.
John Westfall, Unpublished letter to Icarus, dated March 6, 2003. Refer to Figure I.1 in Appendix I.
- 7.
For United States television, frames are 1/30th of a second, but by de-interlacing odd and even lines one can achieve 1/60th second. This is generally the highest time resolution one can typically resolve. It appears that impact flashes last <0.1 second.
- 8.
Winifred Sawtell Cameron, Lunar Transient Phenomena Catalog (Greenbelt, MD: National Space Science Data Center/World Data Center A for Rockets and Satellites, July 1978), 1.
- 9.
Winifred Sawtell Cameron, “Lunar Transient Phenomena (LTP): Manifestations, Site Distribution, Correlations and Possible Causes” Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 4, (1977), 194.
- 10.
Raffaello Lena, Christian Wöhler, James Phillips, and Maria Teresa Chiocchetta Lunar Domes: Properties and Formation Processes (Chichester, UK: Springer, 2013): 59–65.
- 11.
Quoted in Jack B. Hartung, “Was the Formation of a 200-km-Diameter Impact Crater on the Moon Observed on June 18, 1178?” Meteoritics 11 (3) (September 30, 1976), 187–194.
- 12.
Aft er the asteroid explosion over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013, scientists are re-evaluating the cause of the Tunguska event as being the result of an asteroid exploding high up in the atmosphere instead of a cometary explosion as previously theorized.
- 13.
Mons Porphyrites was a mountain site near the Red Sea in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. It appears that this Roman Imperial Quarry was worked from the time of Emperor Tiberius [a.k.a. Tiberius Claudius Nero or Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus (42 B.C.–A.D. 37; reign A.D. 14–37)] until the early fi ft h century A.D. Th is quarry was the only source of the valuable purple igneous porphyry stones in the ancient world.
- 14.
Th is observation was of the 1.5 day-old Moon in Taurus (Cameron #32).
- 15.
Sir William Herschel, “An Account of Th ree Volcanoes in the Moon, Read April 26, 1787” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for 1787 London: Royal Society of London 77 (1787), 229–231.
- 16.
George Carey, Astronomy as it is Known at the Present Day (London: William Cole, 1825), 64.
- 17.
Johann Schröter, Selenotopographische Fragmente (Göttingen, 1791), 594 (§481) translated and quoted in K. Bispham, “Schröter and Lunar Transient Phenomena” Journal of the British Astronomical Association 78 (5) (August 1968), 381.
- 18.
William Wilkins and Nevil Maskelyne, “An Account of an Appearance of Light, like a Star, Seen in the Dark Part of the Moon, on Friday the 7th of March, 1794, by William Wilkins, Esq. at Norwich. In Extracts of a Letter to the Rev. Samuel Vince, F. R. S. and of Th ree Letters to the Rev. Nevil Maskelyne, D. D. F. R. S. and Astronomer Royal; And Communicated by the Latter” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 84, (1794), 429–434. And refer to: William Wilkins, Th omas Stretton, and Nevil Maskelyne, “An Account of an Appearance of Light, like a Star, Seen Lately in the Dark Part of the Moon, by Th omas Stretton, in St. John’s Square, Clerkenwell, London; with Remarks upon Th is Observation, and Mr. Wilkins’s. Drawn up, and Communicated by the Rev. Nevil Maskelyne, D. D. F. R. S. and Astronomer Royal.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 84 (1794), 435–440. The letters were not read to the Royal Society until July 10, 1794.
- 19.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” (1798), part III, lines 203–215, in The Complete Poetical & Dramatic Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: Macmillan and Co., 1907), 100.
- 20.
Dinsmore Alter, Pictorial Guide to the Moon (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967), 184.
- 21.
Ernst Öpik, “The Alphonsus ‘Eruption’,” Irish Astronomical Journal, 6 (March 1963), 39.
- 22.
James C. Greenacre, “The 1963 Aristarchus Event” in Geological Problems in Lunar Research, in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 123, Art 2. (New York: Published by the Academy, July 15, 1965), 812, 813. Also refer to James A. Greenacre, “A Recent Observation of Lunar Color Phenomena,” S&T 26 (6) (December 1963), 316, 317, and S&T 27 (1) (January 1964), 3. Clerke was Greenacre’s correct middle name. Directions are International Astronomical Union (IAU.)
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Garfinkle, R.A. (2020). Observing Lunar Transient Phenomena. In: Luna Cognita. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1664-1_28
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