Lunar impacts during eclipses separated by a Metonic cycle on Jan 21, 2000 and 2019: a possible origin from daytime Sagittarids/Capriconids meteor shower

TL;DR

This paper investigates the recurrence of lunar impacts during eclipses separated by a Metonic cycle, suggesting a possible link to daytime Sagittarids/Capriconids meteor showers based on observational data and probabilistic modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a hypothesis connecting lunar impact events during eclipses separated by 19 years to specific daytime meteor showers, supported by observational and probabilistic analysis.

Findings

Repetition of lunar impact phenomena after 19 years observed.

Potential association with daytime Sagittarids/Capriconids meteor shower.

Probabilistic model explains impact visibility based on lunar surface geometry.

Abstract

The lunar impact claimed by Zuluaga et al. (2019) during the total eclipse of 21 January has been discussed widely by his research group, introducing some results from the technique of gravitational ray-tracing. A similar event of magnitude 6 was observed visually by the author during the eclipse of 19 years before, that was published under the name of Padua event (Sigismondi and Imponente, 2000a,b) and a video was obtained independently by Gary Emerson (Cudnik, 2002) in the US at the same time. The remarkable repetition of such a phenomenon after 19 years deserves some investigation about known active meteor shower on Jan 21 with radiant comprised between the solar longitude 300.7 degrees of January 21 and +/- 60 degrees and declination also departing no more than 60 degrees from the solar one. The amount of 60 degrees is the FWHM of a simple modulated probability model on the visibility of a lunar meteor impact with the cosine of the angle comprised between the line of sight and the normal to the lunar surface. The candidate of this search is the daytime shower Sgr/Cap DSC115 with meteoroid velocities around 26 km/s.