The
Moon is
Earth's nearest natural satellite. Our Moon is bigger than Planet Pluto. It
can
be seen clearly with your eyes. For better viewing you can use
binoculars, or a telescope.
Galileo in 1609 was the first to look at it through a telescope.
The Moon is about 4 and a 1/2 billion years old. It
is the only object in the solar system visited by humans.
Moon
Facts
The
moon is about one quarter the size of Earth and it has about
one-sixth of the Earth's gravity. It has
a black sky, has almost no atmosphere due to its weak gravity.
Without an atmosphere, there is no wind, no clouds and no rain.
*
Distance: Mean distance from Earth
to the Moon is 384,000km (238,900 miles)
*
Diameter:
3,476km (2,160 miles)
*
Mass: 7.35
X 1022 kg. This about
one-eightieth of the Earth's mass.
*
Moon's rotation:
Rotates about its own axis in 27
days and 8 hours,
which is about the same time it takes to orbit the earth.
Hence the same face of the moon is always facing the Earth.
The far side always faces away and cannot be seen from Earth. It
has been photographed by spacecraft.
*
Escape velocity: 2.38 km/sec
* Moon Surface:
It is covered with craters, lava plains, mountains and valleys.
No active volcanos.
*
Temperature:
Ranges from -171?C to 111?C.
*
Mass: 0.012
(Earth = 1)
Phasing
of our Moon
Our Moon goes
through phases during the lunar month. The lunar month is the
29.53 days it takes to go from one new moon to the next. The
moon phase is the shape you see which follows the same pattern
every four weeks.
The shape of
the moon appears to change due to the different amounts of light
being reflected on it and is caused by the relative positions of
the Earth, moon, and sun. At full Moon and new Moon, the Sun,
Earth and Moon are lined up.
PHASES
OF THE MOON:
Day
0 - New Moon is when no light is
reflected so the moon appears dark because it is between our sun
and the Earth and the brightness of our sun outshines the Moon.
Day
4 - Waxing Crescent is when there is a little bit of
light on the moon and its illuminated surface appears to grow
(wax) to full.
Day
7 - First Quarter Moon is when half of the Moon's
surface is illuminated and looks like half-circle. It is is
one-quarter of the way through the lunar month.
Day
10 - Waxing Gibbous is when the moon is nearly, but
not full.
Day
14 - Full Moon is when it is farther
away from the sun than the earth and appears as a bright, round
disk.
Day
18 - Wanning Gibbous is when it wanes
(grows thinner/decreases each night).
Day
22 - Last Quarter is when the moon appears as a
half-circle again. The dark side in the first quarter phase is
now the lit side.
Day
26 - Waning Crescent
Day
29 - New Moon is repeated each lunar month and is the
start of new cycle.
Exploration
Highlights:
- First
photograph of the far side of the Moon was by Soviet Luna
3 spacecraft in October 1959.
- First
soft landing on
the Moon was
by Soviet Luna 9, launched on 31st January 1966 and landed on
3rd February 1966.
- First
manned flight around the moon
was Apollo 8 in December 1968.
- First
manned landing and walk
was
during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20th 1969. The
first man to walk on the moon was
Neil Armstrong on the Apollo
Mission in 1969.
- The
last man on the moon
was Eugene Cernan in
Apollo 17 on December 1972.
Did
you know?
* The main cause of the rise and
fall of ocean tides is the moon's gravitational pull on the
Earth.
*
Regolith
is the soil that covers the
Moon and is composed
of rock fragments and fine dust grains. The big dark spots of
wide flat areas of rock are called seas or maria.
*
Is
the moon made of cheese? No cheese has ever been found on the
moon.
*
The craters
on the surface were made when meteorites (space rock) hit the
moon.
*
There is no such thing as the "dark side of the
moon". The sun shines on all sides.
Click
on the links to learn more about the moon landing and other luna
spacecraft.
Robotic Moon
Spacecraft:
List of Moon Missions:
Lunokhod:
First Moon Rover - Updated
Clementine: USA
Selene: Japan
Luna Prospector: USA
Smart-1:
First European Lunar Spacecraft. At present in orbit.
Manned Moon Missions:
Project Apollo: US Moon Landing Missions
Zond
L-1: Circum-Lunar Spacecraft of the
1960's and early 70's. The Project was initiated, but Aborted.
N-1 Story: Soviet's Manned Moon Program
Moon Links:
References:
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