We’ve landed probes and astronauts on the Moon many times, and it seemed like there
wasn’t much left to discover.
But it seems the moon has a few surprises for us.
And while we’ve studied our solar system, and considered interstellar journeys, it looks
like we’ve overlooked a lot of valuable data concerning our next-door neighbor in
space.
It turns out we don’t know as much about the Moon as we thought.
Who would have thought our moon is like a disco ball?
That's right...scientists are trying to figure out the source of some strange lights spotted
by the Earth's telescopes.
Are aliens building a base there and sending us signals?
Or is there something even more bizarre happening up there?
You're about to find out.
INTRO
Even though the Moon is about 4.4 billion years old, and shows no signs of life, it’s
not completely dead.
In fact, the Moon is still active in some sense.
Throughout the last two centuries, people have been noticing a kind of peculiar flickering
on its surface.
This occurrence was named the (transient lunar phenomenon) or TLPs for short.
This weird flashing on the Moon was first scientifically confirmed in 1958!
According to observers, these optical flashes come in different colors, like red, blue,
violet, and different shades.
TLPs usually last around a second or two until they fade away, but there's also data showing
long-term light bursts.
Some of them were discovered to last from several minutes to a few hours!
But the duration of these light events isn’t the only thing that intrigues many observers.
Their size is another interesting aspect.
Some TLPs can range from a few miles, to a couple hundred miles in diameter.
This fact significantly deepens the mystery around the source of these optical flashes,
and they are not a rare occurrence either.
In fact, the data collected by a UK-based researcher revealed around 3,000 TLP reports.
But many of these reports might have been sent in by inexperienced astronomers.
As the years passed by, modern astronomers equipped with advanced telescopes kept noticing
the blinking on the Moon.
Later, the European Space Agency decided to study this phenomenon.
The agency’s NELIOTA telescope showed something surprising - there are a lot more TLP events
going on there.
Another intriguing fact is that these sparkles have been spotted in different places across
the Moon’s surface, but often occur in places, like the Aristarchus crater.
So what do scientists think is causing these mysterious flashes of light?
Is it aliens?
Well, there’s no single explanation.
And because there could be multiple reasons for why they happen, understanding the true
origin behind TLPs becomes challenging.
The simplest explanation for this phenomenon is meteorite strikes that generate bright
flashes as they collide with the Moon.
Lunar outgassing is yet another reason.
Now, outgassing simply means gas is leaking from the interior of the Moon, and this process
can be caused by different events.
Much like how the Moon’s gravity causes tides on the Earth, our planet does something
similar in return.
The Earth weighs 81 times more than the Moon, and that means it has a greater gravitational
pull.
Because of this, tidal forces can raise the lunar surface as much as 49 inches (125 cm),
and cause rocks on the Moon to fracture.
And as the surface of the Moon moves, gases from inside escape and form clouds that reflect
sunlight.
But since satellites, airplanes, and atmospheric phenomena, such as light pillars and halos
created when light is reflected or refracted by ice crystals in the atmosphere can also
be seen by Earth based telescopes, these can be confused with the Moon blinking, and it
only adds to the mystery.
That’s why scientists plan on studying these luminous events more closely.
Recently, astronomers came up with an idea to use a new telescope system that will consist
of two telescope tubes on a single mount, and both of the tubes will be equipped with
cameras operated by two different computers.
So, as these telescopes watch the Moon and record any TLPs, the computers, powered by
artificial intelligence, will analyze the information received.
Given massive amounts of data, the software will learn to differentiate TLPs from any
other objects getting in the way of the telescopes’ lenses.
It seems the Earth and the Moon have some things in common, and some of these things
are more similar than you could ever imagine.
While we’re all familiar with Earthquakes, most of us never heard about Moonquakes, and
they are a real thing.
See, as the Moon's interior continues to cool down after its formation, its surface shrinks.
As a result, the Moon gets wrinkles.
But since its surface is so fragile, it breaks, creating fault scarps; an offset or step caused
by the fault slipping.
This is somewhat similar to the way a grape turns into a raisin.
In fact, over the course of a few hundred million years, our Moon became roughly 150
feet (50 m) skinnier.
This whole process often leads to Moonquakes.
According to scientists, Moonquakes caused by these faults can be quite strong, up to
5.5 on the Richter scale.
An Earthquake of such magnitude is capable of damaging old buildings and other weak structures.
But while Earthquakes usually last about a minute or less, Moonquakes can last 20 times
longer!
There are quite a few phenomena on the Moon that can threaten anyone who visits it.
And because NASA still wants to send astronauts there, and even colonize the Moon, we have
to learn more about its environment before doing that.
One of the challenges would be creating a habitat with super flexible materials able
to withstand the recurring shaking.
Despite many dangerous phenomena, the Moon is also known to produce some harmless occurrences.
And this one’s actually quite interesting to observe.
We all know what rainbows are, but what if we told you the Moon can create rainbows just
like the Sun?
Moonbows are rarely occurring nighttime phenomena that can be seen on Earth.
The mechanism is identical to that of a rainbow formation.
But instead of sunlight, it is moonlight that bends and reflects off of the water.
And as the light bends for the second time, the white light splits into shorter - blue
and violet, and longer - red wavelengths.
Simply put, it's the angle of the light that makes rainbows colorful.
But since moonlight is less intense, about 400,000 times darker than sunlight, Moonbows'
colors are much dimmer.
They are often too dim to be detected by human eyes, and if you should spot a moonbow, you’d
see it in a more whitish palette of colors.
That being said, lunar rainbows are quite difficult to spot, and there are a few reasons
for this.
They can only be generated if the Moon is quite low in the sky, almost near the horizon.
Plus, the Moon has to be full, and the sky needs to be clear and pretty dark.
Also, you’ve got to be facing a waterfall or mist while standing with your back to the
Moon.
Still, if you ever decide to try and observe this phenomenon, California's Yosemite National
Park, Cumberland Falls, and Victoria Falls would be some of the best places to capture
this.
Now, Moonbows are quite spectacular, IF you get lucky and see one.
But there’s another similar eye-grabbing phenomenon called lunar halos, and you don’t
have to go anywhere to witness them.
Also known as a Moon ring, a circle around the Moon is formed in cirrus clouds.
What’s interesting about these clouds is their high concentration of hexagon-shaped
ice crystals that moonlight goes through and refracts off.
But unlike these easily observable events, the Moon’s got other secrets that are much
harder to detect.
It wasn’t long ago scientists discovered a massive object buried under the Moon’s
surface.
The Moon’s South Pole-Aitken is the largest known impact basin in the entire solar system.
And when researchers studied the basin’s crust, they noticed an underground mass that
shouldn’t have been there.
It was a huge blob with a metallic core found at a depth of about 180 miles (roughly 290
km).
Once scientists did their math, they concluded that this thing’s mass was roughly 4.8 quintillion
pounds (approximately 2.2 quintillion kilograms), which is the same as 6 billion Empire State
Buildings, and it made the crater’s floor sink about half a mile (about 0.8 km)!
So where did that blob come from?
Well, the most common answer is the Moon had a big collision with an asteroid.
And since the crater’s diameter is a little more than 1,500 miles (approximately 2,500
km), you can imagine how big that asteroid was.
Other scientists believe the blob was formed during the cooling phase when there was still
liquid magma on the Moon’s surface.
The basin has long been grabbing the attention of the scientific community, and the curiosity
is growing.
There are already several missions planned to the crater, and the nearby South Pole as
the latter is known to be rich in valuable resources.
One of them is access to sunlight that allows for solar power usage.
Another one is water, frozen water to be precise.
All this represents precious room for experiments once we get there.
Learning more about what’s in front of us, and is easily accessible can give us clues
about more ambitious goals.
The Moon could teach us something that will make Mars colonization possible, or even give
us a short-term plan.
We just need to look in our own backyard and study what's here first, and then boldly go
where no man has gone before.
We hope you enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.