[meteorite-list] Observed lunar meteorite impacts (distribution)

[Chris Peterson]

Most of these explosions were captured during meteor showers. I'd guess 
the uneven distribution simply reflects where the imagers were looking 
at those times, and possibly the FOV of the imaging systems. Given an 
average phase of 50%, you'd expect most of the recorded hits to be 
towards the limbs. There is a bias towards the first quarter over the 
third quarter, which is probably explained by the fact that more imaging 
time was spent before midnight than after.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Piper R.W. Hollier" <piper at xs4all.nl>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11:46 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Observed lunar meteorite impacts 
(distribution)


> Dear Mark and list,
>
> For me the distribution of impact sites shown on the second image "A 
> map of the 100 explosions observed since late 2005" runs counter to my 
> intuition. Why is the distribution not more uniform? There are large 
> areas, especially near the poles, with no impacts recorded, while 
> other areas have rather dense clustering of impact observations. 
> Comets often have highly inclined orbits, so it seems that we should 
> expect some impacts near the poles.
>
> Any ideas out there?
>
> Piper