In an Out-of-This-World Observation, a Museum Curator Filmed the Moon Getting Struck by Meteors—Twice

Lunar impacts could affect plans for future bases on the moon

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

November 6, 2025

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On October 30 and November 1, Daichi Fujii, an astronomy curator at the Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan, used his telescope to capture pinprick-sized flashes on the shaded side of the moon.

Were the flashes the work of some lunar alien industry? Not exactly. They are the result of a very different form of extraterrestrial activity—lunar impacts.

Different outlets have referred to them as asteroids (rocky bodies that are not planets orbiting the sun), meteoroids, fragments of an asteroid or comet and/or meteors—meteoroids that burn up in a planet’s atmosphere, forming what we call “shooting stars.” But the bottom line is that something smashed onto the moon’s surface twice.

昨夜は、上弦の月の夜側に月面衝突閃光が出現しました！2025年10月30日20時33分13.4秒の閃光です(270fps,0.03倍速再生)。月は大気がないため流星は見られず、クレーターができる瞬間に光ります。衝突領域から考えると、現在ピークを迎えている、おうし座南流星群や北流星群由来の可能性があります。 pic.twitter.com/MM3xleCZSJ

— 藤井大地 (@dfuji1) October 30, 2025

In his social media posts featuring the impact videos, Fujii explains that because the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, its meteors aren’t visible. Instead, lunar impacts are detectable thanks to the flash that takes place when their impact creates a crater on the lunar surface.

Given the impact area, Fujii writes, it’s possible that the flashes came from the Southern Taurids or Northern Taurids meteor showers, both of which are peaking this fall.

“Those impact flashes seem real,” Juan Luis Cano, an aerospace engineer with the European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center, confirms to the New York Times’ Robin George Andrews. “What caught my eye is that they both seem to be somewhat above the average in terms of flash size,” indicating they may have been more energetic impacts than normal.

The first burst of light took place east of the moon’s Gassendi Crater, and the second west of Oceanus Procellarum, a large lunar maria, per Space.com’s Daisy Dobrijevic. Lunar maria are flat plains on the moon mainly formed by old lava flow. Fujii tells the outlet that his calculations show the October 30 space rock, with an estimated mass of 0.4 pounds, smashing into the moon at 60,000 miles per hour, carving a ten-foot-wide crater.

昨夜も月面衝突閃光が出現しました！2025年11月1日20時49分19.4秒の閃光です(270fps,0.03倍速再生)。月は大気がないため流星は見られず、クレーターができる瞬間に光ります。おうし座南流星群や北群由来の可能性があります。輝面比は78%もありましたが、太い月は観測時間を稼げるメリットもあります。 pic.twitter.com/HRLzSnke4h

— 藤井大地 (@dfuji1) November 1, 2025

“I started observing lunar impact flashes around 2011 and have been continuously observing since 2020,” Fujii tells Space.com. “With my 20cm telescope, I typically detect about one impact flash every few dozen hours of observation. Because the thin crescent moon is visible only briefly and often low in the sky where thin clouds are common, I only observe a few dozen flashes per year.” To date, he tells the outlet, he has documented 60 such flashes.

While these astronomical observations might seem like an entertaining but inconsequential activity, recording such events carries significance.

“Understanding the frequency and energy of impact flashes can be used to inform the design and operation of lunar bases,” Fujii explains to the New York Times.

Future space exploration could also be affected by lunar impacts, per NASA. Understanding how often these impacts occur will be crucial for future moon missions, the agency’s Lunar Impact Monitoring program writes.

Yet “the lunar impact rate is very uncertain because observations for objects in this mass range are embarrassingly few,” the agency says. All the more reason to capture—and study—future footage of the still mysterious celestial flashes.

Margherita Bassi | Read More

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.