Last week, NASA astronomers monitoring the Moon saw an explosion larger than anything they've seen before. On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in the Mare Imbrium area at an astounding speed of 56,000 mph. The resulting explosion packed as much energy as 5 tons of TNT and left a crater that could be as wide as 65 feet.
NASA astronomer Bill Cooke said:
"On the night of March 17, NASA and University of Western Ontario all-sky cameras picked up an unusual number of deep-penetrating meteors right here on Earth," he says. "These fireballs were traveling along nearly identical orbits between Earth and the asteroid belt."
This means Earth and the Moon were pelted by meteoroids at about the same time.
“My working hypothesis is that the two events are related, and that this constitutes a short duration cluster of material encountered by the Earth-Moon system," says Cooke.
Why, NeatoShop artist Wirdou has the perfect T-shirt for you to commemorate this event:
The Bodyguard
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T-shirts over at the NeatoShop