This crater was formed two years ago, and my immediate reaction was, How come we missed it in real time?
Did a quick Google search and found out that the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is orbiting the Moon, but it doesn’t continuously monitor the entire lunar surface for impacts. It’s actually pretty difficult to notice a meteor impact in real time, unlike on Earth where a meteor creates a fireball in the sky. Plus, the Moon is enormous compared to the LRO’s field of view.
So apparently, we had the spacecraft taking images of the area - but we only noticed the crater when we compared the images before and after the impact.
Earth observation satellites and Lunar observation satellites map the sphere in "stripes" with still photos. If you want to watch live video from low earth orbit, the ISS has two cameras that livestream to YouTube and NASA+ whenever available.
A mapping/recon satellite camera has a field of view of a few degrees, so its orbit will precess around teh globe, taking still photographs in a stepwise fashion, and once a complete set is downlinked, the data scientists and image processors can stitch them into a mosaic, whether that means a flat 2D projection, or a 3D globe (yes I know that none are a perfect sphere).
This crater was formed two years ago, and my immediate reaction was, How come we missed it in real time?
Did a quick Google search and found out that the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is orbiting the Moon, but it doesn’t continuously monitor the entire lunar surface for impacts. It’s actually pretty difficult to notice a meteor impact in real time, unlike on Earth where a meteor creates a fireball in the sky. Plus, the Moon is enormous compared to the LRO’s field of view.
So apparently, we had the spacecraft taking images of the area - but we only noticed the crater when we compared the images before and after the impact.
NASA LRO mission site: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lro/
"Spectacular McGetchin Crater" article from the source: https://lroc.im-ldi.com/images/1501
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeh7812?referrer=...
Earth observation satellites and Lunar observation satellites map the sphere in "stripes" with still photos. If you want to watch live video from low earth orbit, the ISS has two cameras that livestream to YouTube and NASA+ whenever available.
A mapping/recon satellite camera has a field of view of a few degrees, so its orbit will precess around teh globe, taking still photographs in a stepwise fashion, and once a complete set is downlinked, the data scientists and image processors can stitch them into a mosaic, whether that means a flat 2D projection, or a 3D globe (yes I know that none are a perfect sphere).