The Moon is continuously being impacted by solid objects of different sizes that move in the interplanetary space at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour. These objects, which are called meteoroids, are produced as a result of the fragmentation and degradation of different celestial bodies, mostly comets and asteroids. The Earth also suffers the impact of these particles of interplanetary matter, which in most cases are completely destroyed in the atmosphere before reaching the ground. But since the Moon has no atmosphere, meteoroids hit the lunar surface at high speed. As a consequence of this, these particles are completely destroyed during these collisions, producing new craters and giving rise to brief flashes of light that can be recorded from Earth by means of telescopes (Fig. 1). In general, these flashes last only a fraction of a second. Besides, impact plumes are produced during the generation of new craters. These plumes are formed by materials that are ejected at high...
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Madiedo, J.M., Ortiz, J.L. (2018). MIDAS System. In: Cudnik, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Lunar Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05546-6_128-1
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