Astronomy Picture of the Day 1-12-03

NASA ^ | 1-12-03 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2003 January 12

A Spherule from Outer Space
Credit: Timothy Culler (UCB) et al., Apollo 11 Crew, NASA

Explanation: When a meteorite strikes the Moon, the energy of the impact melts some of the splattering rock, a fraction of which might cool into tiny glass beads. Many of these glass beads were present in lunar soil samples returned to Earth by the Apollo missions. Pictured above is one such glass spherule that measures only a quarter of a millimeter across. This spherule is particularly interesting because it has been victim to an even smaller impact. A miniature crater is visible on the upper left, surrounded by a fragmented area caused by the shockwaves of the small impact. By dating many of these impacts, some cratering on our Moon increased roughly 500 million years ago and continues even today.

[petuniasevan]

Quarter of a millimeter? That's just about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

On Earth a similar phenomenon is noted at or near the site of a few large impacts. If you know where to search, you may find splattered rock bits which hardened into tektites.

What is a Tektite?

Tektite FAQs

[petuniasevan]

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping & good morning (-:

[MeekOneGOP]

[BossyRoofer]

If you search around metor crater in AZ you will find these tektites!! APOD the site to the future!

[RightWhale]

There are tectites on earth that were splashed off the moon. They are found in wide bands across the earth; because, the moon was cratered and the splash sprayed out in all directions. Some of the moon is here already.

[Joan912]

Neat!