If we go to back to the Moon, incoming basketball-sized space rocks will be a big worry. NASA scientists captured video of one hitting the Moon. The object was only about 10 inches (25 cm) wide, traveling at 85,000 mph (38 km/s), but it likely carved a crater 14 yards (meters) wide, scientists said.

The video was released today (it is not quite as dramatic as you might hope—just a flash, really—but very cool for scientists).

The video is part of a project to figure out just what the risk to astronauts might be if we set up shop on the Moon, as President Bush said we would. “No one knows exactly how many meteoroids hit the Moon every day,” said NASA researcher Bill Cooke. “By monitoring the flashes, we can learn how often and how hard the Moon gets hit.”

Cooke and Rob Suggs imaged an even smaller impact last year. Another group of scientists captured a similar lunar flash during the 1999 Leonid meteor shower (yes, it showered Earth and the Moon).

A similar-sized rock would likely have burned up trying to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere, generating nothing but a very striking “shooting star.” For the record: They are meteoroids in space, meteors while streaking through the atmosphere, and meteorites when they hit.