It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
The hot spot is a concentration of a radioactive element thorium sitting between the very large and ancient impact craters Compton and Belkovich that was first detected by Lunar Prospector’s gamma-ray spectrometer in 1998.
Originally posted by ArMaP
My question is a simple one: why call it a "hot spot"?
Originally posted by 140BPM
This was first detected in 1998? That was 13 years ago. Why has it taken so long for this to come out?
Originally posted by 140BPM
This was first detected in 1998? That was 13 years ago. Why has it taken so long for this to come out?
Originally posted by Drunkenparrot
Assuming we all know there are 1,000 millions in a billion, how does this contradict NASA's stance that the moon is now geologically dead?
Claims of short-lived phenomena go back at least 1,000 years, with some having been observed independently by multiple witnesses or reputable scientists. Nevertheless, the majority of transient lunar phenomenon reports are irreproducible and do not possess adequate control experiments that could be used to distinguish among alternative hypotheses . Few reports concerning these phenomena are ever published in peer reviewed scientific journals, the lunar scientific community rarely discusses these observations.
Explanations for the transient lunar phenomena fall in four classes: outgassing, impact events, electrostatic phenomena, and unfavorable observation conditions.
Debated status of TLPs
The most significant problem that faces reports of transient lunar phenomena is that the vast majority of these were made either by a single observer or at a single location on Earth (or both). The multitude of reports for transient phenomena occurring at the same place on the moon could be used as evidence supporting their existence. However, in the absence of eyewitness reports from multiple observers at multiple locations on Earth for the same event, these must be regarded with caution. As discussed above, an equally plausible hypothesis for the majority of these events is that they are caused by the terrestrial atmosphere. If an event were to be observed at two different places on Earth at the same time, this could be used as evidence against an atmospheric origin.
Originally posted by Drunkenparrot
Its a fun idea but far from proof of anything close to proving lunar geologic "life" in modern times, in my own amateur speculative opinion.
Originally posted by Drunkenparrot
Assuming we all know there are 1,000 millions in a billion, how does this contradict NASA's stance that the moon is now geologically dead?