Dubbed the ‘Giant Impact Hypothesis,’ this collision is believed to have happened 4.5 billion years ago and would have been 100 million times larger than the event which wiped out the dinosaurs. You always see the same side of the Moon, Just like Earth, the Moon rotates around its axis, but because that rotation lasts about 27 days – roughly the same as the 27.32 days the Moon takes to orbit the Earth – you only ever see one face of the Moon. These are high tides. Scroll down for the answers—and other facts about our moon. • By measuring the ages of lunar rocks, we know that the moon is about 4.6 billion years old, or about the same age as Earth. ⇒ Size of the moon and sun looks the same in the sky Throughout history, countless myths and scientific theories have tried to explain the universe's origins. The most widely accepted explanation is the big bang theory. The dark lava flows are what the eye discerns as maria. The force gravity exerts on a person determines the person's weight. There are two bulges in Earth resulting from the gravitational pull of the moon. It has a diameter of 2,159 miles (3,476km). Everywhere, the moon is sheathed by rocky rubble created by constant bombardment by meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. Updated 5:02 PM ET, Fri November 22, 2019. “The good thing is there is no wind to blow it about,” adds Massey. There is no continental drift on the moon. Most of this water is lost to space, but some is trapped in permanently shadowed areas near both poles of the moon. The Moon’s surface area is as big as Europe and Africa combined so we have only scratched the surface.”. • How did the moon form? “Because the surface of the Moon is dormant and it experiences fewer geological forces (like volcanoes or erosion) than Earth, it neatly stores pristine evidence of ancient formations and craters. “It’s not much – for one cubic metre of soil you might extract a litre - but it increases the possibility of one day building bases on the Moon.”, 9. Maybe not, When Jupiter was young, a massive planet likely slammed into it, Earth's moon is shrinking and quaking, study says, These are the new spacesuits for the first woman and next man on the moon. As the Earth rotates, the bulges move around it, one always facing the moon, the other directly opposite. Since the moon is Earth's closest celestial neighbor, we've been able to learn more about it than any other in the solar system. Its mean surface temperature is 107 degrees Celsius in the day and -153 degrees Celsius at night. New facts about the moon -- and even Mars -- can be expected once NASA completes their mission to send the first woman and the next man to the moon by 2024. Look carefully and you can see the International Space Station in silhouette as it transits the Moon. If you thought you knew all there is to know about the moon, think again. Learn how big the Moon is, who the first person to walk on it was, why we only see one side of it and much more. Friday, January 4, 2019, By Mark Bailey. Read on and enjoy the wide range of interesting facts about the Earth’s Moon. Why the 1969 moon landing still inspires space explorers today, Can water survive in the moon's deep, dark craters? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2004/07/moon-facts.html. Here’s another 13 interesting facts about the Moon: The Moon is Earth’s only natural satellite. (CNN)Since the moon is Earth's closest celestial neighbor, we've been able to learn more about it than any other in the solar system. 10 amazing facts about the Moon Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society, discusses the Moon’s most extraordinary secrets. • The airless lunar surface bakes in the sun at up to 243 degrees Fahrenheit (117 degrees Celsius) for two weeks at a time (the lunar day lasts about a month). It is drifting away almost 2.7 cm every year from the earth. A telescope shows that they consist of a great variety of round impact features—scars left by objects that struck the moon long ago. Facts about the moon ⇒ An increasing distance of the moon. Photograph by NASA/Joel Kowsky. Moon: Art, Science, Culture by Alexandra Loske and Robert Massey (Ilex Press) is out now, priced £20. “Essentially the Moon pulls up water on one side of the Earth, but on the other side, where its gravitational forces are weaker, the water bulges in the opposite direction.” Those bulges move around the oceans as the Earth rotates, causing high and low tides around the globe. On July 20, 1969, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to set foot on the dusty surface of the Moon. The Moon is the only other planetary body that humans have visited. However, the moon is bombarded by water-laden comets and meteoroids. Then, for an equal period, the same spot is in the dark. Ten other American astronauts followed. “Whereas the near side has lunar maria – large, dark plains which often cover impact basins – the far side is more cratered and rugged, with a thicker crust and less evidence of volcanic activity.”, “Put simply, tides on Earth are the result of bulges in the water caused by the gravitational forces of the Moon,” says Massey. This means the moon's rotation is synchronized in a way that causes the moon to show the same face to the Earth at all times. SubscribePrivacy Policy(UPDATED)Terms of ServiceCookie PolicyPolicies & ProceduresContact InformationWhere to WatchConsent ManagementCookie Settings. The Moon began with an explosive collision. One hemisphere always faces us, while the other always faces away. 5. Look carefully and you can see the International Space Station in silhouette as it transits the Moon. All rights reserved. Lunar soil is clearly visible on the suit of astronaut Charles Conrad Jr., commander of the Apollo 12 lunar landing mission, America's second successful mission to the Moon. Instantly, most of the rogue body and a sizable chunk of Earth were vaporized. Learn about the explosion that started it all and how the universe grew from the size of an atom to encompass everything in existence today. 1. When the Earth rotates, the bulges move around in the oceans, causing the high tides and low tides in oceans all over the world. • Because the force of gravity at the surface of an object is the result of the object's mass and size, the surface gravity of the moon is only one-sixth that of the Earth. “The Moon even saved the explorer Christopher Columbus from starvation.” After consulting his almanac, Columbus used the lunar eclipse of February 29, 1504, to frighten the native Arawak Indians on the island of Jamaica into giving him and his crew food. By modeling the evolution of ejecta fragments from the collision, researchers of a 2015. According to his son Ferdinand, at the sight of the eclipse the Arawaks “with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions.”, “Although we are centuries off large numbers of people living on the Moon, it is possible we could soon have scientific bases there, similar to Antarctic research stations,” explains Massey. The mean diameter of the moon is 2,159 miles, close to the 2,406 miles between Phoenix and New York City. This crater, called Daedalus, has a diameter of about 80 kilometres. They collected hundreds of pounds of lunar soil and rock samples, conducted experiments and installed equipment for follow-up measurements. This image shows the Moon's north polar region - India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission discovered water close to the Moon's poles. There's a special type of tide when the sun, moon and Earth align together bi-monthly around the times of the New Moon and Full Moon -- a. 2020 National Geographic Partners, LLC. A lunar eclipse saved Christopher Columbus, “The Nebra Sky Disc, a bronze artefact dating to 1600BC which was discovered in Germany, is the first known human map to include an image of the Moon - and it is a reminder of how much the Moon has influenced human history,” says Massey. © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, © 2015- “This phenomenon is called ‘tidal locking’ or ‘captured rotation’ and it means the other side of the Moon was completely invisible before the Space Age,” says Massey. The moon has inspired myths and superstitions for thousands of years. • The rocks and soil brought back by Apollo missions are extremely dry; the moon has no indigenous water. 4. Both bulges cause high tides. “The Moon started out around ten times closer to the Earth than it is now,” reveals Massey. “Imagine looking up at the night sky and seeing the Moon 10 times bigger.” Computer simulations suggest the Moon could even have been 12-19 times closer, at a distance of just 20,000-30,000km, compared to 384,000km today. Space pictures of the Month: Moon from orbit and stars' fiery birth, Discover the 10 most exciting space projects right now, New kind of alien 'mineral' created on Earth. Here are 10 scientific and historical facts about the moon that might surprise you. “Because tides are also influenced by gravity from the sun, without the moon we would still have tides but they would be smaller.”, “India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission discovered water close to the poles of the Moon and NASA has found water in the soil,” says Massey. How old is the universe, and how did it begin? There are surprising details about the moon, such as how in 1958, the US proposed exploding a nuclear bomb on its surface, for clout. Learn about the moon's violent origins, how its phases shaped the earliest calendars, and how humans first explored Earth's only natural satellite half a century ago. The largest scars are the impact basins, ranging up to about 1,500 miles (2,500 kilometers) across. According to the "giant impact" theory, the young Earth had no moon. The diameter of the moon is 2,160 miles (3,476 kilometers). Check out these fun Moon facts for kids. The new moon, when the moon is darkened, occurs when the moon is almost directly between Earth and the sun—the sun's light illuminates only the far side of the moon (the side we can't see from Earth). “Debris was ejected into space and then coalesced to form the Moon.” Modern research seems to confirm the Moon is made of material from the early Earth’s crust. That’s about one-quarter the size of Earth. 1. “One astronaut on the Apollo 17 mission (Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt) likened its smell to that of gunpowder. The basins were flooded with lava some time after the titanic collisions that formed them. The combined forces of gravity, the Earth's rotation, and other factors usually cause two high tides and two low tides each day. Even though your mass would be the same on Earth and the moon, if you weigh 132 pounds (60 kilograms) on Earth, you would weigh about 22 pounds (10 kilograms) on the moon. The dust caused some astronauts a kind of ‘lunar hay fever.’” The sneezing and congestion took days to disappear. After astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronaut Gene Cernan was the, NASA is also planning for what would be the. The moon's mass—the amount of material that makes up the moon—is about one-eightieth of the Earth's mass. • The distance between the Earth and its moon averages about 238,900 miles (384,000 kilometers). • To the unaided eye, the bright lunar highlands and the dark maria (Latin for "seas") make up the "man in the moon." According to NASA, the Moon’s temperature can span from 123 degrees Celsius to -233 degrees Celsius. Why does the lunar day last one Earth month? Scientific consensus about how the moon formed is that billions of years ago, a protoplanet crashed into Earth and the pieces of it revolved around the Earth to form the moon. The distance between the moon and earth is increasing slowly.

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