2 ms·

Are we sure it didn't just kick up dust into the sunlight? Looks like the sun might have been just below the horizon.

• gibmeat 4y ago
  I thought about this too, but if it were dust, I'm guessing it wouldn't dissipate in 1 second.
  • marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Seems like atmospheric intuition. I'd expect high velocity dust to diffuse rather quickly in near vacuum.
    • icehawk 4y ago
      Here's a 2.8km/sec dust cloud from DART for comparison: https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/DARTimpactDimorphos_26sept2022_panel.jpg?x31283 https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads...
• op00to 4y ago
  If it kicked up dust, would the dust keep going, or would the Moon’s gravity pull it back to the lunar surface quickly? I have no idea.
  • cornstalks 4y ago
    The moon’s escape velocity is 2.38 km/s (5324 miles/hour), so it just depends on whether or not the material reached escape velocity or not.
    • op00to 4y ago
      Thank you for this! Totally made it click in my head.
  • ktm5j 4y ago
    In my layman opinion a dust cloud would at very least stick around for much longer than the duration that we see this glowing last. There has to be something else responsible for the flash imo.