From Fireballs to Moonquakes: the Source Population of Lunar Seismic Impacts

Meteoroid impacts are one of the main seismic sources on the Moon. The Apollo seismometers recorded many of them, and the next generation of lunar seismometers will rely on them again. The bodies responsible, roughly kilogram to tonne in mass, are poorly sampled by telescopic surveys but are well observed as fireballs in Earth’s atmosphere. I will give an overview of how we characterise these objects as they hit the Earth using instruments like the Global Fireball Observatory; and what insights we gain from these measurements, including new orbital modelling that maps how these impactors are distributed across the lunar surface.