the 22-km-wide crater would have kicked up of debris, triggering a week-long, blizzard-like meteor storm on Earth – yet no accounts of such a noteworthy storm of unprecedented intensity are found in any known historical records, including the European, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and Korean astronomical archives. This discrepancy is a major objection to the theory that Giordano Bruno was formed at that time. Also, much older craters, e.g., Tycho at 108 million years and Copernicus at an estimated 800 million years, still have prominent ray systems. High-resolution images obtained by the Japanese satellite SELENE in 2008 were used to date the crater by counting the smaller craters within it and its ejecta deposits. This gave an age of million years, much too old for the hypothesis. This raises the question of what the monks saw. An alternative theory holds that the monks just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see an exploding meteor coming at them and aligned with the Moon. This would explain why the monks were the only people known to have witnessed the event; such an alignment would only be observable from a specific spot on the Earth's surface. See also 5148 Giordano, asteroid References Sources External links AS08-12-2209, an excellent oblique view of the ray system with Lomonosov in the foreground, from Apollo 8 Lunar probe Kaguya overflight of Giordano Bruno crater (video) Giordano Bruno, The Big Picture, LRO Featured Image, 26 June 2012 Outside of Giordano Bruno, LRO Featured Image, 25 August 2011 Impact craters on the Moon Giordano Bruno 12th century in science