SCIENCE: As we approach the peak of the Geminid meteor shower on Friday night (Dec. 13), the sky is starting to glow with a slew of impressive meteors hitting Earth’s atmosphere. But Earth isn’t the only target; the moon is regularly hit by such meteor showers, and Daichi Fujii, a curator at the Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan, captured some of the recent collisions.
Fujii recorded meteor impacts on the moon twice, on Dec. 6, Dec. 7 and Dec. 8, 2024, using cameras set up to monitor Earth’s nearest neighbor. You can see some of his lunar impact videos (as well as some impressive fireballs) on his Xplore account.
“Another lunar impact flash occurred tonight. I filmed it at 22:34:35 on December 8, 2024 from my home at 360fps (slow playback) and was able to confirm it with multiple telescopes. Bright meteors and fireballs are visible every day, but lunar impact flashes have also been captured one after another,” Fujii wrote in a post on X on December 8. This is not the first time Fujii has observed such an impact. In February 2023, he recorded another impressive video of a meteor hitting the moon.
It is unclear whether the recent lunar impacts captured by Fujii are a product of the Geminid meteor shower or simply the result of sporadic meteors. When asked about the possible origin of these meteors, Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society told EarthSky, “While it’s a bit early for strong Geminid activity, it’s possible that these are Geminid meteors since they are striking the Moon from the expected direction.” Lunsford suggested that, if they are indeed Geminid meteors, the rate of strikes on the Moon is quite extraordinary, since even during Geminid maximum, it’s more common to see less than one visible strike per night.
