Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, September 9th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 8:05, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:15. The Moon, 4 days past first quarter, will set at 3:29 tomorrow morning.

Two Harvard University astronomers who have studied the interstellar asteroid or comet that was discovered last year ‘Oumuamua are proposing to observe small interstellar meteoroids with a lunar orbiting satellite when they hit the Moon. A spectrum of the flash they make when they hit the Moon will allow the constituent elements and isotopes to be discovered. These values have been studied for a long time from meteorites in our solar system. So a body from another solar system born of material from a different supernova and hypernova than our solar system may show different isotope ratios of its elements. A hypernova is a newly discovered event, when two neutron stars collide, and are the main source of heavy elements like gold.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Artist visualization of ‘Oumuamua. Credit Credit: European Southern Observatory / M. Kornmesser.

There’s the article about it on Universe Today:  https://www.universetoday.com/143234/by-continuously-watching-the-moon-we-could-detect-interstellar-meteorites/