SAASST News

Friday, 28 February 2020 09:52

SAASST Lunar Impacts Observations

A new program to observe lunar impacts has just started at the Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences, and Technology. Mr. Mohamed Talafha, SAASST observatory specialist along with two University of Sharjah students, Firoz Abdul Aziz Chogle (U19100739) and Arya Pratap Rajawat (U19100855), conducted the first observation on Feb. 28, 2020. SAASST has just installed a new 3-meter dome equipped with a 14-inch Meade telescope along with several sensitive instruments to perform this task.

 

Our SAASST program to observe lunar impacts is similar to the NASA Lunar Impact Monitoring Program (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/lunar/index.html). We follow the same guidelines in terms of:

 

Mission statement: Use Earth-based observations of the dark portion of the Moon to establish the rates and sizes of large meteoroids (higher than 10s of grams or a few ounces in mass) striking the lunar surface.

 

Why it is crucial: Lunar impact monitoring enables measurement of meteoroids in the 10s of grams to kilograms size range which is challenging to measure with other techniques.

 

When we observe: Observations are taken between New and 1st Quarter Moon and between Last Quarter and New Moon, when the solar illumination is between 10 and 55 percent. These conditions yield 10-12 observing nights per month.