56,000 MPH Space Meteor Hits the Moon - Video

A NASA moon monitoring telescope captured the blast, which could be seen by the naked eye on Earth, on March 17th, 2013. 

The object was the size of a small boulder and may be part of a meteor swarm that also flew past Earth.

Credit: NASA

The object created a new crater 65 feet wide (20 meters). The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye, NASA scientists say.

"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement.

"It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."