Astronomers have revealed that a car-sized meteorite hit the surface of the moon in September last year. The incident produced a brightest flash of light ever from earth. The object was travelling with the speed of 61,000km/h towards the moon. After it struck the surface of the moon, it created a 130-foot (40m) wide crater.

According to estimates, the meteorite was between 2 feet and 4.6 feet in diameter and its weight was nearly 882 pounds (400kg). The meteorite struck the region of the moon known as Mare Nubium and its force was about 15 tons of TNT.

"Anyone on Earth who was lucky enough to be looking at the moon at that moment would have been able to see it", the United Kingdom's Royal Astronomical Society said in a press release.

The event was captured by Prof. Jose M Madiedo on 11 September 2013. He realized that the event was rare and extraordinary. He was operating two telescopes in the south of Spain to search for lunar impact events when he witnessed an unusually long and bright flash in Mare Nubiumat at 2007 GMT. The region is an ancient lava-filled basin that has darker appearance than its surroundings.

Prof Madiedo and his colleague Dr. Jose Ortiz said the brightness of the object's blast on the surface of the moon was equivalent to the Polar Star itself.

The Spanish team of researchers said that such one meter sized objects are ten times more likely to hit earth than what scientists have previously thought. However, unlike moon the earth has a protective shield to prevent it from rocks as small as the one that hit Mare Nubium.