Development of
data acquisition and analysis software (see, e.g., Madiedo
et al. 2015).
Systematic monitoring of the lunar
surface from different astronomical observatories located in Spain.
Determination
of impact plume temperatures since 2015 (Madiedo
et al. 2016). Download here the
poster presented at the Meteoroids 2016 Congress, held
at ESTEC, the Netherlands.
Recording of the first lunar impact
flash ever observed and confirmed during a lunar eclipse
(Madiedo
et al. 2019).
The September 11, 2013 impact event
Since our survey was started, we have
recorded a large number of impact flashes produced by meteoroids belonging
to the sporadic background and to different meteoroid streams (see some
publications about this topic below). However, it is worth mentioning that two
telescopes operated in the framework of MIDAS spotted on September 11, 2013
the brightest and longest (over 8 seconds in duration) lunar impact flash
recorded so far
(Madiedo et al. 2014).
To date, no other survey has recorded a lunar impact blast larger than this.
Lunar
impact flash recorded on September 11, 2013 in the
framework of the MIDAS Project.
The crater produced by this event was
located the by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probe in Mare Nubium.
Despite the poor atmospheric transparency at the time of the observation,
which made very difficult to identify features on the lunar surface to
determine the selenographic coordinates of the impact position (see figure
above), the location originally predicted by the MIDAS software for the new
crater produced by this event differed from the position measured by LRO by
only 2 km! This positional error is lower than the error determined by other
surveys.
You
can find below an outreach video produced on occasion of the publication of
the analysis of this event in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society:
Main publications in peer-reviewed journals
The following list contains some of
the works published by us in the framework of the MIDAS Project:
*Ortiz, J.L., Aceituno, F.J., and
Aceituno, J. (1999). A search for meteoritic flashes on the Moon. Astronomy
and Astrophysics, 343, L57-L60.
*Ortiz, J.L., Aceituno, F.J., and
Aceituno, J. (2000). Optical detection of meteoroidal impacts on the Moon.
Nature, 405, 921-923.
*Bellot-Rubio, L.R., Ortiz, J.L., and
Sada, P.V. (2000). Luminous Efficiency in Hypervelocity Impacts from the 1999
Lunar Leonids. The Astrophysical Journal, 542, L65-L68.
*Bellot-Rubio, L.R., Ortiz, J.L., and
Sada, P.V. (2000). Observation and Interpretation of Meteoroid Impact Flashes
on the Moon. Earth, Moon, and Planets, 82/83, 575-598.
*Ortiz, J.L., Quesada, J.A., Aceituno, J., Aceituno, F.J., and Bellot-Rubio,
L.R. (2002). Observation and Interpretation of Leonid Impact Flashes on the
Moon in 2001. The Astrophysical Journal, 576, 567-573.
*Ortiz, J.L., Aceituno, F.J., Quesada, J.A., Aceituno, J., Fernández, J.,
Santos-Sanz, P., Trigo-Rodríguez, J.M., Llorca, J., Martín-Torres, F.J.,
Montanes-Rodríguez, P., and Pallé, E. (2006). Detection of sporadic impact
flashes on the
Moon: Implications for the luminous efficiency of hypervelocity impacts and
derived terrestrial impact rates. Icarus, 184, 319-326.
*Madiedo, J.M., Trigo-Rodríguez, J.M.,
Ortiz, J.L., and Morales, N. (2010). Robotic Systems for Meteor Observing and
Moon Impact Flashes Detection in Spain. Advances in Astronomy, Article ID
167494, 1-5.
*Madiedo, J.M., Ortiz, J.L., Morales,
N., and Cabrera-Cano, J. (2014). A large lunar impact blast on 2013 September
11. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 439, 2364-2369.
*Madiedo, J.M., Ortiz, J.L., Organero,
F., Ana-Hernández, L., Fonseca, F., Morales, N., and Cabrera-Cano, J. (2015).
Analysis of Moon impact flashes detected during the 2012 and 2013 Perseids.
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 577, id.A118.
*Madiedo, J.M., Ortiz, J.L., Morales,
N., and Cabrera-Cano, J. (2015). MIDAS: Software for the detection and
analysis of lunar impact flashes. Planetary and Space Science, 111, 105-115.
*Ortiz, J.L., Madiedo, J.M., Morales, N., Santos-Sanz, P., and Aceituno, F.J.,
(2015). Lunar impact flashes from Geminids: analysis of luminous efficiencies
and the flux of large meteoroids on Earth. Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, 454, 344-352.
*Madiedo, J.M., Ortiz, J.L., and Morales, N.
(2018). First determination of
the temperature of a lunar impact flash and its evolution. Monthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society,
480, p.5010-5016.
*Madiedo, J.M., Ortiz, J.L., Morales, N.
and Santos-Sanz, P. (2019).
Multiwavelength observations of a bright impact flash during the 2019
January total lunar eclipse.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
486, p.3380-3387.
