Talk:Transient lunar phenomenon

MAJOR HISTORICAL OMISSIONS
The following three major milestones in the history of lunar transient phenomenon (LTP) should have been included in this article:

During the night of April 19, 1787, the famous British astronomer, Sir William Herschel (1956), noticed three red glowing spots on the dark part of the Moon. He informed King George III and other astronomers of his observations. Sir William attributed the phenomena to erupting volcanoes and perceived the luminosity of the brightest of the three as greater than the brightness of a comet that had been discovered on April tenth. His observations were made while an aurora borealis (northern lights) rippled above Padua, Italy (Kopal, 1966). Aurora activity that far south from the Arctic Circle was very rare. Padua’s display and Herschel’s observations had happened a few days before the sunspot number had peaked in May 1787. During the years that followed, many astronomers tried to attribute such reports to misunderstood atmospheric phenomena because lunar transient phenomena were brief and unpredictable.

Research into LTP events was escalated by observations made on October 29, 1963, by two Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC) cartographers working for the U. S. Air Force lunar mapping program. The two ACIC cartographers, James A. Greenacre (1963) and Edward Barr, at the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, observed very bright red, orange, and pink color phenomena on the southwest side of Cobra Head; a hill southeast of Schroeter’s Valley; and the southwest interior rim of the crater Aristarchus (Zahner, 1963-64). This event sparked a major change in attitude towards LTP reports. According to Willy Ley (1965, p. 71): “The first reaction in professional circles was, naturally, surprise, and hard on the heels of the surprise there followed an apologetic attitude, the apologies being directed at a long-dead great astronomer, Sir William Herschel.” According to Winifred Sawtell Cameron (1978, Event Serial No.778): “This and their November observations started the modern interest and observing the Moon.”  The credibility of their findings stemmed from Greenacre’s exemplary reputation as an impeccable cartographer. It is interesting to note that this monumental change in attitude had been caused by the reputations of map makers and not by the acquisition of photographic evidence.

A few days after Greenacre’s event, at the Observatoire du Pic-du-Midi in the French Pyrenees, Zdenek Kopal and Thomas Rackham (1964), made the first photographs of wide area lunar luminescence on the night of November 1-2, 1963. His article in Scientific American (Kopal, 1965) transformed it into one of the most widely publicized LTP event. Kopal, like others, had argued energetic particles generated by solar activity was one of the causes of lunar luminescence.


 * Cameron, W. S. (1978, July). Lunar transient phenomena catalog (NSSDC/WDC-A-R&S 78-03).  Greenbelt, MD: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
 * Greenacre, J. A. (1963, December). A recent observation of lunar color phenomena.  Sky & Telescope, 26(6), 316-317.
 * Herschel, W. (1956, May).  Herschel’s ‘Lunar volcanos.’  Sky and Telescope, pp. 302-304.  (Reprint of An Account of Three Volcanos in the Moon, William Herschel’s report to the Royal Society on April 26, 1787, reprinted from his Collected Works (1912))
 * Kopal, Z. & Rackham, T. W. (1963). Excitation of lunar luminescence by solar activity.  Icarus, 2, 481-500.
 * Kopal, Z. & Rackham, T. W. (1964, March). Lunar luminescence and solar flares.  Sky & Telescope, 27(3), 140-141.
 * Kopal, Z. (1965, May). The luminescence of the moon.  Scientific American, 212(5), 28.
 * Ley, W. (1965). Ranger to the moon (p. 71).  New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc.
 * Zahner, D. D. (1963-64, December-January). Air force reports lunar changes.  Review of Popular Astronomy, 57(525), 29, 36.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tcisco (talk • contribs) 19:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC).


 * I'm going to look into these, as well as the papers you listed below, as soon as I get the time. As you realize, few of these are available as pdfs! I think we can add one or two of these to the text, but I don't think that is is a good idea from an editorial standpoint to list every single TLP. I tried to add enough detail concerning a few notable events in order that the reader could judge for themselves as the accuracy and reliability of these events. Lunokhod 21:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. One should not list all LTP's - just the notable ones.  Those that had received international attention, documented by photometric and/or spectrographic instruments, and that had been dissiminated to a broad swath of the technical community should receive the highest priority for comment.  All peer reviewed sources that I have cited are available through library systems.  A few may be accessible through the Internet. Tcisco 23:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The majority of peer reviewed journals before 1970 are not still not yet available online at most research institutions. In a few years this should be remedied, but I still need to make photocopies of journals like Icarus from this time period!


 * During the last four years, I have spent time and money on the acquisition of various papers through interloan systems of the public libraries. Other references were obtained through the NASA Astrophysics Data System.  During my teenaged years in the sixties, I was active in an amateur astronomy club back home.  I still have the articles from that period about lunar luminescence.  The greatest displays of the aurora borealis that I have seen transpired back then.  It made sense to associate lunar irradiance with solar storms.  During the last couple of years, I have tried to match the wide area phenomena reported in Cameron's catalogs with reports of ground level events.  Analyses of lunar rocks have evinced bombardments by MeV solar energetic protons.  Rare incidents of wide area irradiances in the red band of the spectrum have been documented.  The historical documents and peer reviewed papers I have collected support the predictions that dramatically intense, wide area lunar lumninescences shall transpire in the red band of the visible spectrum.  This is a fascinating area of study.  Tcisco 15:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed
I've added a lot of material. However, before this topic is acceptable, the missing citations need to be added. Also, I am open to removing the mention of pseudoscience and conspiracy theory if you think this goes too far. Lunokhod 14:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Multiple witnesses
"with some having been observed independently by multiple witnesses"

Does anybody know what events have been observed by multiple witnesses? Does this refer only to the Cantebury event? or are there others? Lunokhod 19:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

An examination of the following extensive catalog by Winifred Sawtell Cameron would yield such events:


 * Cameron, W. S. (1978, July). Lunar Transient Phenomena Catalog [NSSDC/WDC-A-R&S 78-03].  Greenbelt, Maryland: National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC)/World Data Center A for Rockets and Satellites (WDC-A-R&S), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Tcisco 07:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Other Theories
Two other theories that might be considered are:

Electrodynamic Effects associated with the cracking of rocks - see: "A New Mechanism for Lunar Transient Phenomena" by Richard R.Zito, Icarus, 82, p419-422, (1989). I assume the physics are correct in this paper, however I do wonder if regolith covering hides effectively this from being visible on the surface? As to what mechanisms could cause large slabs of rock to fracture, well there are 1) Moon Quakes, 2) Meteorite impacts, and 3) thermal expansion and contraction. One would assume that regolith would mostly hide (1) and (3) from visibility.

Eletrostic dust particles - these were probably images from the surface by one of the surveyor landers, and I think imaged from orbit as horizon glare (?) from Clementine, but whether this would be visible to Earth observers I do not think anyone has proven yet. Mills has also suggested triboletric discharge between dust particles, nicely summarized in a Nature Vol 285, p438 (1980) review of TLP by David Hughes.

T.C. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.243.220.21 (talk) 17:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Lunar Luminescence
Comments should have been made about the reported wide area brightenings. Several articles have explored correlations between such phenomena and flux surges in solar particles. For example:

Tcisco 07:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Kopal, Z. & Rackham, T. W. (1963). Excitation of lunar luminescence by solar activity.  Icarus 2, 481-500.
 * Matsushima, S. (1966, October). Variation of lunar eclipse brightness and its association with the geomagnetic planetary index Kp.  The Astronomical Journal 71(8), 699-705.
 * Scarfe, C. D. (1965). Observations of lunar luminescence at visual wavelengths.  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 130(1), 19-29.
 * Sekiguchi, N. (1971). An anomalous brightening of the lunar surface observed on March 26, 1970.  The Moon 2, 423-434.
 * Spinrad, H. (1964). Lunar luminescence in the near ultraviolet.  Icarus 3, 500-501.

GA Pass
Congratulations on the pass grade. The only recommendation I have is that you provide internal links for words that the layman (or even some experts) may not understand in order to comply with What is a good article? 1.(d) necessary technical terms or jargon are briefly explained in the article itself, or an active link is provided.--Jorfer 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry I did it myself.--Jorfer 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Over wiki-linking
In my opinion, portions of this article are showing signs of over wiki-linking. In particular, links seem to have been added to normal words (not jargon) that the average reader would never have reason to click on. It almost appears as if links have been given either because "they exist", or to act as a "dictionary". As examples, consider the following that I propose for removal:
 * Phenomenon
 * Transient
 * frequency
 * illumination (lighting)
 * Anomaly
 * Amplitude
 * implanted
 * distortion
 * abnormality
 * one or two of the three: spectrograph, spectra, spectrogram
 * second instance of Linné (crater)

I would argue that any reasonable person would know what these words mean, that they are repetitive, or that the information in the link adds no extra information or insight to the topic. Please consult with WP:MOS-L and overlinking for guidance on what should and should not be linked. Lunokhod 14:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Important source missing?
Caveat Emptor Great care must be exercised whenever consulting Wikipedia. For example, a Wikipedia article entitled “Transient Lunar Phenomenon” gives the appearance of a comprehensive report, but failed to cite one of the most widely publicized reports of lunar luminescence. A rare, wide area irradiance of the Moon, that was photographed by astonomers Z. Kopal and T. Rackham, was publicized in Scientific American (vol. 212, no. 5, p. 28), Sky & Telescope (vol.27, no. 3, p. 140), and Icarus (vol. 2, p. 481). Several journals cited those reports, but the Wikipedia authors of “Transient Lunar Phenomenon” made no mention of it. Wikipedia is not as comprehensive as it may appear. Unfortunately, such deficiencies are consistent with the practice of promulgating articles written under an alias.

Taylor Cisco, Jr., Program Compliance Officer at City Colleges of Chicago, at 10:30 am EST on February 1, 2007


 * - can anyone confirm whether this is an important source that is missing from this article? - Ta bu shi da yu 09:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This was already noted above, and I am in the process of tracking down the references. Of course, YOU could add this information if you wanted to! In any case, the point of this article is not to describe every single TLP, becuase there are over 2000 in the Cameron catalog, and probably a lot more that didn't make it into that compilation. The point is to (1) describe what they are, (2) describe a few typical examples in sufficient detail so that the reader can judge as to wether these reports should all be taken seriously or not, and (3) describe the mechanisms that have been purported to account for this purported phenomenon. In my opinion, the events that are described in the text are better known than the Kopal event.


 * As for the link you give, or course this is not suitable for this article, even though I agree with it. Lunokhod 11:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Uncited reports
I have removed these three TLP reports because (1) they are not cited, and (2) they are anecdotal.


 * About a year later on September 26th 1788, a German astronomer saw a white beam of light among the peaks of the lunar Alps (near to the crater Plato). In July 1821, Franz Gruithuisen, the creator of the meteoric impact theory of Lunar cratering, saw flashing points of light on the surface of the moon, however when he revealed he had discovered a lunar city he was ridiculed by his colleagues and he burned his notes.


 * On the 31st of January 1915, astronomers could clearly make out the Greek letter gamma, an account of which was posted in The Astronomical register in London. Other letters have also been spotted on the moons surface, a glowing “X” has been spotted on numerous occasions, and a strange glowing check pattern has been sighted near the Plato crater.


 * One of the more bizarre incidents of TLP occurred in July 1953 when an enormous “bridge-like structure” around 12 miles long could be seen across the sea of crises. A British lunar expert said (in an interview with the BBC) “It looks artificial. It’s very straight and definitely solid, as it casts a shadow.” The bridge is now nowhere to be seen. It vanished as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared.

I recall that there are thousands of TLP reports, and that they can not all be repertoired in this article. Lunokhod 10:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Lunar luminescences II
Lunokhod, have you examined the references for lunar luminescence? Astronomers have used the "method of line depths," developed by Frantisek Link, to verify the phenomena. Zdenek Kopal and Rackham were the first to photograph it and Naosuke Sekiguchi incorporated photometric and polarmetric analyses to measure it with greater precision. Lunar luminescence is a fifth mechanism that has transpired over much larger areas than phenomena associated with outgassing and electrostatics. Tcisco 13:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Lunar Transient Phenomena (LTP)?
I've seen these events classified as Lunar Transient Phenomena (LTP) elsewhere, notably in the Discovery Channel's current "The Universe" series (by the narrator and scientists in the "Mysteries of the Moon" episode). Is Lunar Transient Phenomena the more popular term? If so, should the title of this article be changed? 68.118.179.201 (talk) 02:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

There isn't really much in it. Modern scientific thinking seems to be drifting towards calling them LTP, however, they are more commonly known as TLP in current literature. I don't honestly think it warrants more than its current redirect, which is, afteral, as good as the article having both names. I'm calling them LTP in a research project at the moment anyhow, but it was a matter of personal choice. Pulsar (talk) 23:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: Pass
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Planets and Moons" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2007. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. I would recommend going through all of the citations and updating the access dates and fixing any dead links. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Apollo 11
I was reading the old Time article on Apollo 11 and it mentions time spent observing a TLP. "A GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND" as seen here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901102-7,00.html so I added it.68.102.180.134 (talk) 04:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Translation to FR
Hello, Just to let you know this article has recently been translated to french, and merci à ses auteurs (thanks to those who wrote it). Hop ! Kikuyu3 (talk) 22:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:10, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Could we see Earth's moon as if it's an extremely large comet nucleus?
In other words, if Earth's moon was, say, a hundred times smaller, would there be much more gaseous and dusty clouds around it? Or perhaps a continuously refreshed coma, just like the coma around a comet's nucleus in the proximity of the sun. DannyCaes (talk) 10:41, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Dark/Night Side?
There are 2 references to the "dark side" of the moon and 4 references to the "night side" in the events list that should probably be removed and/or replaced with something saying the observation was made at night instead. Mongo404 (talk) 02:55, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Lunar radiation anomaly and ball lightning (BL)
Hi, just to add to what has been discussed previously. I've done some extensive research into radon and other gas leakage, and there is a small but plausible chance that if argon AND radon leaked out at the same time under pressure through a small vent or vents, a long lived plasma event may well form. This would look a lot like a "plasma fountain" and in this case its the pressure release that causes luminescence by ionizing the dusty plasma a bit like volcanic lightning, thus magnifying the event's brightness by several orders of magnitude. Unsure on which forum to post this, but calculations planned on my GPU array may be useful as it has tangential relevance to ball lightning. The "moving dots" may be something a lot like BL, though the formation mechanism is solar in origin caused by differential electrical charge lightning is well known on Jupiter and can be huge compared to Earth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.190.166.126 (talk) 05:58, 22 June 2022 (UTC)