Rock bridge on the Moon

[mikeskor]

Has anyone else seen what resembles a rock bridge on the moon similar to what we see on earth near the shore where ocean waves have a eroded away lower rock leaving an arching bridge above. I and a group of children saw this a couple of nights back at 180X through a Skywatcher 120 refractor. I checked on the internet and discovered that photos have been taken of a rock bridge on the moon possibly caused by impact and the movement of the subsequent molten rock caused by the impact. I wonder also if early volcanism on the moon may have caused rock bridges.

[DRT]

Are you seeing these "rock bridges" on the limb (edge) of the Moon? If so what you are seeing is the tops of enormous mountains or crater ridges that are lit up by the Sun where the lower parts of the feature are in darkness.

To give you an idea of what level of detail can be seen on the Moon through a telescope you might want to read this: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question188.htm

I recall reading somewhere that the Hubble Space Telescope is capable of producing images of the Moon where one pixel is around 100m², which is about the size of two football pitches. Earth-bound telescopes have much lower capability than Hubble and it is likely that the smallest features we can see from our amateur devices would be measured in Kilometers rather than meters.

[mikeskor]

Thank you. This is certainly a possible explanation for what we saw. We were looking at the terminator area at the time.

[AndyWB]

You're not the only one to think they've spotted a bridge: 

http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/O%27Neill%27s+Bridge 

http://www.astronomy.com/columnists/stephen%20omeara/2010/05/stephen%20james%20omearas%20secret%20sky%20oneills%20illusion 

[hullobservertory]

Yeah this goes back sometime the bridge on the moon could it be a rock formation

[mikeskor]

Thank you. The story is very interesting.

[quaoar]

If it's real can I name it??

[DRT]

If it's real can I name it??

Only if you call it the Bridge Over the River Quaoar ;-)

[quaoar]

I'm calling it TooFar