Observations Of Odd Flashes Of Light On The Moon Predate The Telescope

For centuries, dating back to long before the invention of the telescope, people have reported odd flashes that sometimes light up the Moon. While these claims go back over a thousand years, it took a long time for them to be taken seriously by scientists, and we still lack an agreed-upon explanation. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

It is unclear how long we have seen these flashes of light or color on the lunar surface, but the observations date back at least to the sixth century CE.

"Literature and received reports of lunar transient phenomena (LTP) in lunar programs of observations provided a collection of 2,254 total observations, from 557-1994 [CE] with sufficient information for auxiliary data analysis," a pap