Incredible footage shows the moment a meteorite smashed into the moon, carving a crater into its surface.
A huge flash of light was captured by a Japanese astronomer on February 23 in what has been described as a likely ‘lunar impact flash’.
Daichi Fuji, head of astronomy at the Hiratsuka City Museum, caught the split-second film just after 8.15pm (11.15 GMT) from his home in Hiratsuka, Japan.
He tweeted: ‘I was able to catch the biggest lunar impact flash in my observation history!
‘At the time of observation, there was no artificial satellite passing over the lunar surface, and from the way it shines, it is highly likely that it is a lunar impact flash.’
Daichi Fuji captured the shot at around 8.15 pm (11.15 GMT) from his home in Hiratsuka, Japan
Mr Fuji said the object seemed to have fallen near the Ideler L crater, slightly northwest of the Pitiscus crater on the moon.
Because the light captured on his telephoto camera was so bright, he claimed that the ‘generated crater is large’ and the ‘striations are clearly visible’.
Meteors and fireballs are not visible however, as the moon has no atmosphere, he added, but the moment a crater forms ‘it glows’.
He continued: ‘At that time, the altitude of the moon was only seven degrees, and I was glad that I was able to hold on until the last minute.’
MailOnline has approached the European Space Agency and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for further comment.
Around 100 pingpong-ball-sized meteoroids hit the moon everyday, according to Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
Last year, he told Live Science: ‘That adds up to roughly 33,000 meteoroids per year.
‘Despite their small size, each of these pingpong-ball-size rocks impacts the surface with the force of 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms) of dynamite.’
Mr Fuji claims the object smashed into the moon’s surface near the Ideler L crater
Just over one week before Mr Fuji’s shot, another meteoroid also created a shooting star that could be seen across southern England and Wales and in parts of France.
The rock, called 2023 CX1, entered the atmosphere around two miles off the French coast at 3am, creating a fireball as it disintegrated into small pieces which landed in the sea.
It was only the seventh time an asteroid strike had been successfully forecast, in what the European Space Agency said was ‘a sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities’.
However, the largest known lunar impact is understood to have occurred around 4.3 billion years ago near its south pole.
The massive strike is said to have sent a huge plume of heat through the lunar interior.
