The moon may still be wobbling front a colossal meteorite impact 800 years I ago.

This is reported in the Feb. 24 issue of Science by two astronomers on the basis of laser observations from the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas and a calculation of the moon's status on the night of June 18. 1178.

It was on that night that English monks recorded that “a flaming torch sprang up” from the crescent moon,„ spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks.” Parts of the moon were then obscured.

The two astronomers, Dr. Odile Calame and Dr, J. Derral Mulholland, credit The New York Times of Oct. 26, 1976, with bringing this account to their attention. It told of a report by Dr. Jack B. Hartung of the State University of New York at Stony Brook to the annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society at Lehigh Unibersity.

Dr. Hartung had cited an account in the chronicles kept by Gervase of Canterbury, based on reports by a half‐dozen monks. Last year two other meteorite specialists, H. H. Nininger and G. I. Huss, suggested that what the monks saw was a meteor crossing their. view of the face of the moon as the meteor entered the atmosphere of the earth:

Dr. Hartung suggested that the impact produced the crater, known as Giordano Bruno, on the far side of the moon. It is 12 miles wide and, because of the rays that radiate from it, appears to he one of the youngest such impact scars on the moon. The rays are avenues of small craters and debris thrown in all directions by the impact explosion.