Asteroids striking the moon
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- Asternaut
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Asteroids striking the moon
How large would an asteroid striking the moon have to be to actually disturb its orbit?
- neufer
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Re: Asteroids striking the moon
If TU24 had impacted the moon on either its leading or trailing endHarveyAlaric wrote:How large would an asteroid striking the moon have to be to actually disturb its orbit?
it could changed its orbital speed (of ~ 1 km/s) by enough to have
changed its orbital major axis (of ~ 770,000 km) by about 1 centimeter.
This is sufficient to be measured by Apollo era lunar retro-reflectors:
- <<The McDonald Laser Ranging Station (MLRS) is a dedicated
laser ranging station capable of measuring round trip light travel times
to a constellation of artificial earth satellites and lunar retro-reflectors
to a precision of about 1 centimeter.>>
Art Neuendorffer