Mysterious Moon Flashes: Could the Transient Lunar Phenomena be Linked to the Solar Cycle?

The Moon, our nearest natural satellite. (Photo by author).

A key mystery in observational lunar astronomy may be at least partially resolved.

An interesting study appeared recently in the British Astronomical Association’s (BAA) March 2013 edition of their Lunar Section Circular. The study is one of the most comprehensive looks at possible connections between Transient Lunar Phenomena and the Solar Cycle.

Collection of TLP reports analyzed by Barbara Middlehurst & Sir Patrick Moore. The red dots indicate reddish events, the yellow one other colored events. (Wikimedia Commons image in the Public Domain).
Collection of TLP reports analyzed by Barbara Middlehurst & Sir Patrick Moore. The red dots indicate reddish events. The yellow ones represent other colored events. (Wikimedia Commons image in the Public Domain).

Transient Lunar Phenomena (or TLPs) are observations collected over the years of flashes or glows on the Moon. Since these phenomena often rely on a report made by a solitary observer, they have been very sparsely studied.

The term itself was coined by Sir Patrick Moore in 1968. One of the very earliest reports of a TLP event was the flash seen on the dark limb of the waxing crescent Moon by Canterbury monks in 1178.

Other reports, such as a daylight “star near of the daytime crescent Moon” seen by the residents of Saint-Denis, France on January 13, 1589 was almost certainly a close conjunction of the planet Venus. Bright planets such as Venus can be easily seen next to the Moon in the daytime.

A daytime Moon and Venus as seen from France on January 13th, 1589. (Created by the author in Starry Night).
A daytime Moon and Venus as seen from France on January 13th, 1589. (Created by the author in Starry Night).

A stunning illusion also occurs when the Moon occults, or passes in front of a bright star or planet. In fact, there’s a name for this psychological phenomenon of a bright star seeming to “hang” between the horns of the Moon just prior to an occultation, known as the Coleridge Effect. This takes its name from a line in Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner;

“Till clomb above the eastern bar, the horned Moon with one bright star,

Within nether tip.”

Okay, we’ve never seen the “horned Moon clomb,” either. But this does describe a real illusion often seen during an occultation. The mind thinks that gap between the horns of the Moon should be transparent, and the lingering planet or star seems to cross that space on the dark limb, if only for a second. Incidentally, South American residents will get to check this out during the next occultation of Venus this year on September 8th.

So, what does this have to do with the 11-year solar cycle? Well, when you strip away many of the dubious observations of TLPs over the years, a core of well- documented events described by seasoned observers remains. Anyone who has sketched such a complex object as the Moon realizes that fine detail becomes apparent on scrutiny that may be missed in a casual glance. But one persistent assertion that has gone around the astronomical community for years is that an increase in the number of TLP events is linked to the peak of the solar cycle.

This was first suggested in 1945 by H. Percy Wilkins. A later study by Barbara Middlehurst in 1966 disproved the idea, citing no statistical correlation between sunspot activity and TLPs.

Of course, pundits have tried unsuccessfully to link the solar cycle to just about everything, from earthquakes to human activity to booms and busts of the stock market. Most flashes on the dark limb of the Moon are suspected to be meteorite impacts. In fact, the advent of high-speed photography has been able to reveal evidence for lunar strikes during intense meteor showers such as the Leonids and Geminids.

Flash of a Leonid impact captured on the limb of the Moon in 2006. Click image  to see animation. (Credit: NASA Meteoroid Environment Office).
Flash of a Leonid impact captured on the limb of the Moon in 2006. Click image to see animation. (Credit: NASA Meteoroid Environment Office).

What’s at little less clear are the source of luminous “hazes” or “glows” noted by observers. Keep in mind; we’re talking subtle effects noted after meticulous study. NASA even commissioned a study of TLPs named Project Moon-Blink during the early Apollo program. About a third of TLP events have been observed near the bright crater Aristarchus. Researchers even managed to get Neil Armstrong to make an observation of the crater during a pass on Apollo 11. He noted that “there’s an area that is considerably more illuminated than the surrounding area. It seems to have a slight amount of fluorescence.”

Aristarchus crater (arrowed) near Full Moon. Note how bright it is compared to the surrounding terrain. (Photo by Author).
A crater with a relatively high albedo (Proclus, arrowed) near Full Moon. Note how bright it is compared to the surrounding terrain. (Photo by Author).

But what’s interesting in the recent BAA study conducted by Jill Scambler is the amount of data that was available. The study was a comprehensive analysis of TLPs noted by the BAA, the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO) and NASA from 1700 to 2010. Observations were weighted from 1 to 5, with 1 for reports from inexperienced observers to 5 for definitive and unambiguous TLP events.

The periodogram analysis comparing the frequency of TLPs with the sunspot cycle utilized a tool available from NASA’s Exoplanet Database to evaluate the data. If there was any mechanism whereby TLPs were being generated by solar activity, it had been suggested previously by Wilkins that perhaps out-gassing was being caused be solar irradiation or lunar dust was becoming electrostatically charged and suspended.

In fact, Surveyor 7 witnessed such a phenomenon during lunar twilight. To date, no human has witnessed a sunrise or sunset from the surface of the Moon, although astronauts witnessed several from lunar orbit.

"Horizon glow" as imaged from the lunar surface during twilight. (Credit: NASA).
“Horizon glow” as imaged from the lunar surface during twilight. (Credit: NASA).

The final conclusion of the BAA study cites that “Although there are theories that might infer that TLP would be more frequent during solar activity, from a sunspot cycle perspective there is no evidence to support this.”

The report provides an interesting perspective on the topic, especially with solar cycle 24 peaking over the next year. It also seems that reports of TLPs have declined in past decades. One of the most famous examples was the flash imaged on the Moon (thought to be a Leonid) by Leon Stuart in 1953. But in the modern era of astrophotography with the Moon under nearly continuous scrutiny, where are all the images of TLPs?

Granted, a core number (2%) of events suggest evidence of real activity on a Moon that we most often think of as geologically dead. As for the spurious sightings, it helps to recall the number of “sightings” in the 19th century of Vulcan transiting the face of the Sun. Where is Vulcan today, with the Sun being monitored around the clock?

We’re not immune to this sort of “echo effect” in the modern world of astronomy, either. For example, whenever an impact scar or flash is noted on Jupiter, as occurred in 2009 and 2012, other sightings are “seen” throughout the solar system. A similar psychological phenomenon occurred when Comet Holmes brightened in 2007. For a time, reports flying around the Internet suggested many comets where suddenly increasing in brightness!

It also interesting to note that many features such as Aristarchus and Ina Caldera also have a high brightness or albedo. Although the Full Moon seems pearly white, the albedo of the Moon is actually quite low at (13%), about that of worn asphalt. Bright ejecta and rays tend to stand out, especially approaching a Full Moon, such as occurs on May 25th.

You can even enhance the saturation of those lunar pics to bring out subtle color and reveal that the Moon isn’t as monochromatic as it appears to the naked eye;

A false-colored gibbous Moon enhanced to bright out subtle color. (Photo by author).
A false-colored gibbous Moon enhanced to bring out subtle color. (Photo by author).

Kudos to the team at the BAA for casting a critical scientific eye on a little studied phenomenon. Perhaps missions such as the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) departing for the Moon this summer will shed more light on the curious nature of Transient Lunar Phenomena.

-The study can be read in the March 2013 edition of the British Astronomical Association’s Lunar Section Circular available as a free pdf.

New Calculations Effectively Rule Out Comet Impacting Mars in 2014

This computer graphic depicts the orbit of comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) through the inner solar system. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Near-Earth Object Office says that new observations of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) have allowed further refinements of the comet’s orbit, helping to determine the chances it could hit Mars in October of 2014. Shortly after its discovery in December 2012, astronomers thought there was an outside chance that a newly discovered comet might be on a collision course with Mars.

While the latest orbital plot places the comet’s closest approach to Mars slightly closer than previous estimates, the new data now significantly reduces the probability the comet will impact the Red Planet, JPL said, from about 1 in 8,000 to about 1 in 120,000.

The closest approach is now estimated at about 68,000 miles (110,000 kilometers). The most previous estimates had it whizzing by at 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers).

The latest estimated time for close approach to Mars is about 11:51 a.m. PDT (18:51 UTC) on Oct. 19, 2014. At the time of closest approach, the comet will be on the sunward side of the planet.

The comet was discovered in the beginning of 2013 by comet-hunter Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. When the discovery was initially made, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona looked back over their observations to find “prerecovery” images of the comet dating back to Dec. 8, 2012. These observations placed the orbital trajectory of comet C/2013 A1 right through Mars orbit on Oct. 19, 2014.

JPL says future observations of the comet are expected to refine the orbit further. The most up-to-date close-approach data can be found at JPL’s Small Body Database.

Source: JPL

Scientist Invents a Time Machine (*Wink*)

A production of the time machine from H.G. Wells' famous story. Via the Austin, Texas Library.

An interesting news item from Iran’s Entkhab news agency: Iranian scientist Ali Razeghi – who is also the managing director of Iran’s Center for Strategic Inventions — has registered a new invention of his own making: a time machine.

It’s doesn’t actually take anyone to the past or future, but produces printed reports with details about the future, and can “predict five to eight years of the future life of any individual, with 98 percent accuracy” according to Razeghi, as quoted in The Telegraph.

“My invention easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users,” he says. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you.”

Razeghi, 27, says he has been working the project for 10 years and this is the 179th invention he has registered.

The “time machine” would be a good resource for governments, he said, but he doesn’t want to launch a prototype at this point because “the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight.”

Razeghi said his latest project has been criticized by friends for “trying to play God” with ordinary lives and history. “This project is not against our religious values at all,” Razaghi was quoted. “The Americans are trying to make this invention by spending millions of dollars on it where I have already achieved it by a fraction of the cost.”

Of course, this has spurred articles about Doc Brown and DeLoreans, with hardly anyone taking this seriously.

Breathtaking Flyover of Greenland from NASA’s Operation IceBridge

Nunataks in the western portion of the Greenland ice sheet seen from the NASA P-3B during an IceBridge survey of southwestern Greenland on Apr. 8, 2013. Nunataks are areas of exposed rock in an ice sheet such as ridges or mountain peaks. These jagged rock formations are sometimes used as landmarks on an ice sheet. Credit: NASA / Jim Yungel.

Here’s a view you don’t often see: Greenland’s glaciers from 500 meters above the ice. But this new video from NASA’s Operation IceBridge — recorded on April 9, 2013 — shows areas of southeast Greenland using a cockpit camera, revealing what the pilots see as they fly NASA’s P-3B airborne laboratory low over the Arctic. Following a glacier’s sometimes winding flow line gives IceBridge researchers a perspective on the ice not possible from satellites which pass in straight lines overhead. By gathering such data, IceBridge is helping to build a continuous record of change in the polar regions.

The plane allows researchers to images Earth’s polar ice in unprecedented detail to better understand processes that connect the polar regions with the global climate system. IceBridge utilizes a highly specialized fleet of research aircraft and the most sophisticated suite of innovative science instruments ever assembled to characterize annual changes in thickness of sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets. In addition, IceBridge collects critical data used to predict the response of earth’s polar ice to climate change and resulting sea-level rise. IceBridge also helps bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA’s ICESat satellite missions.

Find out more about Operation IceBrige at their website.

What are You Doing for Yuri’s Night?

Yuri's Night celebrated by the Curiosity rover in Yellowknife Bay on Mars. Credit: NASA

Yuri’s Night commemorates two space milestones in history that both occurred on April 12: in 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made the first human spaceflight, and in 1981, the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Shuttle. Yuri’s Night is a global celebration of humanity’s past, present, and future in space. Yuri’s Night parties and events are held around the world, and you can check the Yuri’s Night website to see if there is an event near you.

The astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS will celebrate (see video below), and the first ever Yuri’s Night on another world is being held via Twitter and Facebook along with the Curiosity rover.

Yuri’s Night events combine space-themed partying with education and outreach. These events can range from an all-night mix of techno and technology at a NASA Center, to a movie showing and stargazing at your local college, to a gathering of friends at a bar or barbecue.

In 2011, the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, over 100,000 people attended 567 officially-recognized events in 75 countries on all 7 continents, while tens of thousands more watched the 12-hour live Yuri’s Night Global Webcast and participated online in the virtual world of Second Life.

Latest Curiosity Rover Update: Mars’ Bygone Atmosphere

The argon isotope fractionation provides clear evidence of the loss of atmosphere from Mars. (NASA/JPL)

In this latest video update from the Mars Science Laboratory team, Ashwin Vasavada, the mission’s Deputy Project Scientist, discusses the recent finding that the Red Planet doesn’t have the same atmosphere it used to. Curiosity’s microwave oven-sized Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument analyzed an atmosphere sample and the results provided the most precise measurements ever made of isotopes of argon in the Martian atmosphere.

IAU Issues Response To Uwingu’s Exoplanet Naming Campaign

An exoplanet seen from its moon (artist's impression). Via the IAU.
An exoplanet seen from its moon (artist's impression). Via the IAU.

Given the popularity of the recent contest by Uwingu to suggest names for the closest known exoplanet to Earth (officially named Alpha Centauri Bb or ACBb for short), the International Astronomical Union has issued a statement about their stance on the “official” naming process. The IAU says that while they welcome the public’s interest in being involved in recent discoveries, as far as they are concerned, the IAU has the last word.

“In the light of recent events, where the possibility of buying the rights to name exoplanets has been advertised, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) wishes to inform the public that such schemes have no bearing on the official naming process. The IAU… would like to strongly stress the importance of having a unified naming procedure,” said the statement issued by the IAU.

Scientist Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and CEO Uwingu told Universe Today that he thinks the IAU should side with democracy instead of elitism.

“I think it is diminishing that the IAU is holding onto their claim that they own the Universe,” he said via phone after reviewing the IAU’s statement. “This is like some 15th century European academic club claiming that since Columbus discovered America, they own all the naming rights. That’s BS.”

While the IAU provides official names for stars and planetary bodies in our Solar System, the IAU’s official stance on naming exoplanets has been that since there is seemingly going to be so many of them, (over 800 have been discovered so far) that it will be difficult to name them all. They’ve said the consensus among IAU scientists was that they had no interest in naming exoplanets.

However, they recently added a few sentences on their website that “the IAU greatly appreciates and wishes to acknowledge the increasing interest from the general public in being more closely involved in the discovery and understanding of our Universe. As a result in 2013 the IAU Commission 53 Extrasolar Planets and other IAU members will be consulted on the topic of having popular names for exoplanets, and the results will be made public on the IAU website.”

Stern thinks the IAU’s current stance on naming exoplanets is tactical mistake. “The taxpaying public pays for all the exploration that the IAU members are doing, but the IAU is making an attempt to limit the public’s involvement in something that the public clearly likes to do,” he said. “As an astronomer, that’s my view.”

Uwingu, a startup company that is using out-of-the-box ideas to raise funds for space exploration and science, started an exoplanet naming contest last fall, and the contest to provide a better, “snappier” name for ACBb was started in March, 2013.

Stern knew going into this that the names wouldn’t officially be approved by the International Astronomical Union, but said they will be similar to the names given to features on Mars by the mission science teams (such as Mt. Sharp on Mars –the IAU-approved name is Aeolis Mons) or even like Pike’s Peak, a mountain in Colorado which was named by the public, in a way, as early settlers started calling it that, and it soon became the only name people recognized.

“This should be the wave of the future for planets and there’s no reason for the public not to get involved,” Stern said.

In today’s statement, the IAU said the “certificates” people receive after suggesting a name in Uwingu’s contest are “misleading, as these campaigns have no bearing on the official naming process — they will not lead to an officially-recognized exoplanet name, despite the price paid or the number of votes accrued.”

The IAU conceded that while exoplanet names such as 16 Cygni Bb or HD 41004 Ab may seem boring compared to the names of planets in our own Solar System, “the vast number of objects in our Universe — galaxies, stars, and planets to name just a few — means that a clear and systematic system for naming these objects is vital. Any naming system is a scientific issue that must also work across different languages and cultures in order to support collaborative worldwide research and avoid confusion.”

And to make that possible, the IAU should act as a single arbiter of the naming process, they said.

“As an international scientific organization, [the IAU] dissociates itself entirely from the commercial practice of selling names of planets, stars or or even “real estate” on other planets or moons. These practices will not be recognized by the IAU and their alternative naming schemes cannot be adopted.”

Information about Alpha Centauri Bb. Information about Alpha Centauri Bb. Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory/University of Puerto Rico/Arecibo
Information about Alpha Centauri Bb. Information about Alpha Centauri Bb. Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory/University of Puerto Rico/Arecibo

However, several astronomers, including Xavier Dumusque, the lead author of the paper that announced the discovery of ACBb has said they like the idea of having the public involved in naming the exoplanets.

“I would definitively endorse the name for public outreach and lectures,” Dumusque told Alan Boyle of NBC’s Cosmic Log. “In astronomy, we have some chance to be able to make people dream, by showing a wonderful picture, by discovering new worlds. If someone is interested in astronomy, he should not face troubles to understand all the nomenclature. Therefore, giving memorable names for planets is one way to get more people interested in our wonderful research.”

Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin also has been actively participating in the contest and suggested “Tiber” as the name for ACBb. Aldrin is the co-author of a 1977 sci-fi novel titled “Encounter With Tiber.”

IAU’s reticence in naming exoplanets seems to come from the huge bulk of names that will be required. But that’s where Uwingu’s crowd sourcing idea seems to fit the need, and a sort of compromise would be that the public could come up with the names as suggestions in Uwingu’s “baby book” of names, and the IAU would assign the “official” names from the list provided by the public.

If nothing else, Uwingu’s concept has shown how interested the public is in exoplanets and hopefully has given the IAU the kick in the pants needed to possibly consider naming them.

If you’re interested in suggesting names for ACBb, be quick, as the Uwingu contest ends on April 15.

Spooky Experiment on ISS Could Pioneer New Quantum Communications Network

The cameras mounted in the ISS's cupola could serve as the platform for the first-ever quantum optics experiment in space.

With its 180 degree views of Earth and space, the ISS’s cupola is the perfect place for photography. But Austrian researchers want to use the unique and panoramic platform to test the limits of “spooky action at distance” in hopes of creating a new quantum communications network.

In a new study published April 9, 2012 in the New Journal of Physics, a group of Austrian researchers propose equipping the camera that is already aboard the ISS — the Nikon 400 mm NightPOD camera — with an optical receiver that would be key to performing the first-ever quantum optics experiment in space. The NightPOD camera faces the ground in the cupola and can track ground targets for up to 70 seconds allowing researchers to bounce a secret encryption key across longer distances than currently possible with optical fiber networks on Earth.

“During a few months a year, the ISS passes five to six times in a row in the correct orientation for us to do our experiments. We envision setting up the experiment for a whole week and therefore having more than enough links to the ISS available,” said co-author of the study Professor Rupert Ursin from the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Albert Einstein first coined the phrase ‘spooky action at a distance’ during his philosophical battles with Neils Bohr in the 1930s to explain his frustration with the inadequacies of the new theory called quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics explains actions on the tiniest scales in the domain of atoms and elemental particles. While classical physics explains motion, matter and energy on the level that we can see, 19th century scientists observed phenomena in both the macro and micro world that could not easily explained using classical physics.

In particular, Einstein was dissatisfied with the idea of entanglement. Entanglement occurs when two particles are so deeply connected that they share the same existence; meaning that they share the same mathematical relationships of position, spin, momentum and polarization. This could happen when two particles are created at the same point and instant in spacetime. Over time, as the two particles become widely separated in space, even by light-years, quantum mechanics suggests that a measurement of one would immediately impact the other. Einstein was quick to point out that this violated the universal speed limit set out by special relativity. It was this paradox Einstein referred to as spooky action.

CERN physicist John Bell partially resolved this mystery in 1964 by coming up with the idea of non-local phenomena. While entanglement allows one particle to be instantaneously influenced by its exact counterpart, the flow of classical information does not travel faster than light.

The orbital pass of the ISS over an optical ground station could be used for quantum communication from inside the Cupola Module, as long as the OGS is not more than 36° off the NADIR direction. Credit: T Scheidl, E Wille and R Ursin.
The orbital pass of the ISS over an optical ground station could be used for quantum communication from inside the Cupola Module, as long as the OGS is not more than 36° off the NADIR direction. Credit: T Scheidl, E Wille and R Ursin.
The ISS experiment proposes using a “Bell experiment” to test the theoretical contradiction between predictions in quantum and classical physics. For the Bell experiment, a pair of entangled photons would be generated on the ground; one would be sent from the ground station to the modified camera aboard the ISS, while the other would be measured locally on the ground for later comparison. So far, researchers sent a secret key to receivers just a few hundred kilometers apart.

“According to quantum physics, entanglement is independent of distance. Our proposed Bell-type experiment will show that particles are entangled, over large distances — around 500 km — for the very first time in an experiment,” says Ursin. “Our experiments will also enable us to test potential effects gravity may have on quantum entanglement.”

The researchers point out that making the minor alteration to a camera already aboard the ISS will save time and money needed to build a series of satellites to test researchers’ ideas.

The Sun Doesn’t Cause Earthquakes

SDO/AIA image of the Sun from April 12

If that title seems like an obvious statement to you, it’s ok… it seems pretty obvious to me too. But there are those who have been suggesting — for quite some time, actually — that earthquakes can be triggered or strengthened by solar activity; that, in fact, exceptionally powerful solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other outpourings from our home star can cause the planet’s crust to shift, shake, and shudder.

Except that that’s simply not true — at least, not according to a recent study by researchers from the USGS.

Researchers Dr. Jeffrey Love from the United States Geological Survey and Dr. Jeremy Thomas from Northwest Research Associates compared historical data of solar activity with earthquake occurrences around the world and found no definitive correlations… nothing to suggest that one directly influenced the other.

“Recently there’s been a lot of interest in this subject from the popular press, probably because of a couple of larger and very devastating earthquakes. This motivated us to investigate for ourselves whether or not it was true.”

– Jeffrey Love, USGS Research Geophysicist

Even when an earthquake may have been found to occur on the same day as increased solar activity, at other times during even stronger quakes the Sun may have been relatively quiet, and vice versa.

Damage in Anchorage from an earthquake on March 27, 1964. Solar activity at the time was unexceptional. (U.S. Army photo)
Damage in Anchorage from an earthquake on March 27, 1964. Solar activity at the time was unexceptional. (U.S. Army photo)

“There have been some earthquakes like the 9.5 magnitude Chile quake in 1960 where, sure enough, there were more sunspots and more geomagnetic activity than on average,” said Dr. Love. “But then for the Alaska earthquake in 1964 everything was lower than normal. There’s no obvious pattern between solar activity and seismicity, so our results were inconclusive.”

Basically, even though our planet orbits within the Sun’s outer atmosphere and we are subject to the space weather it creates — and there’s still a lot to be learned about that — observations do not indicate any connection between sunspots, flares, and CMEs and the shifting of our planet’s crust (regardless of what some may like to suggest.)

“It’s natural for scientists to want to see relationships between things,” said Love. “Of course, that doesn’t mean that a relationship actually exists!”

The team’s findings were published in the March 16, 2013 online edition of Geophysical Research Letters.

Read more in Harriet Jarlett’s article on Planet Earth Online, and for results from another study see Dr. Ryan O’Milligan’s article on TheSunToday.org.

(Oh, and the Moon doesn’t cause earthquakes either.)