What is there in thee, moon,
That thou shouldst move
My heart so potently?
By John Keats
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The most popular view about how the moon
formed was that a space object collided with
the Earth. The material that was knocked off
Earth combined with the material of the
space object to form the moon.
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Others believe that the moon is a huge
asteroid that was captured in the Earth’s
gravitational pull. This is unlikely because the
moon is a sphere are has a normal orbit
around the Earth.
Moon
Earth
Size (diameter)
2,156 miles
7,926 miles
Surface Area
14,658,000 square miles
197,000,000 square miles
Tilt of the Axis
1.5 degrees
23.5 degrees
Temp. Range
-243/225 degrees (F)
-129/136 degrees (F)
Mass
7.35 x 1022 kg
5.97 x 1024 kg
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There is no weather on the moon because it
has no atmosphere.
Since the moon has no atmosphere, the
temperatures are extreme.
The average distance between the moon and
the Earth is 239,000 miles.
The surface gravity on the moon is 1/6 of
Earth’s gravity. That means that you would
weigh less on the moon than you would on
Earth.
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http://www.vat19.com/brain-candy/yourweight-on-the-moon.cfm
You would have to carry your own supply of air.
You would have to wear a space suit to protect you from the
sun’s radiation.
 You would feel a lot lighter on the moon, so you would not
feel too heavy with the space suit on.
 The sky would not look as blue as it does on Earth. The sky
would appear black, even when the sun is shining.
 You could see the earth, depending on where you are on the
moon.
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Tidal locking means that the Earth and the
moon both have gravitational forces that affect
each other. It also means that one side of the
moon always faces Earth.
One side of the moon always faces Earth
because it takes 29.5 days for the moon to turn
one time on its axis, and it takes the same
amount of time for the moon to orbit Earth.
Even though the side of the moon that does not
face us is called the dark side, it is not really
dark. In fact, the dark side of the moon is
brightly lit when we experience a new moon.
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Since the moon and the Earth are gravitationally
attracted to each other, tides occur.
Tides are the rising and falling of bodies of water.
High tides happen when water that is facing the moon
bulges out in the direction of the moon. They also
happen on the side of the Earth that is opposite the
moon because the Earth is being pulled away from
the water on the far side.
Low tides happen in the bodies of water that are
facing away from the moon.
The moon tugs on the solid earth as much as it pulls
on the water, but tides occur because water is easily
deformable.
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Spring tides happen when the Earth, the Sun,
and the Moon are in a line.
The gravitational forces of the Moon and the
Sun contribute to the tides.
The high tides are especially high, and the
low tides are especially low.
Spring tides occur during a full moon or a new
moon.
Spring tides have nothing to do with the
season.
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Neap tides are especially weak tides.
They occur when the moon and the sun are at
a right angle to the Earth.
The bulges that the sun and the moon cause
on Earth cancel each other out.
Neap tides happen during quarter moons.
Moon phases are the different shapes of the
moon that we see in the sky.
 Phases occur because the moon is going around
the Earth and the same side of the moon always
faces us. Therefore, we sometimes are not able
to see the entire portion of the moon that is lit up.
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 For example, when a new moon occurs, we do not see
the moon because only the side of the moon that is
away from us is completely lit up.
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After 29.5 days, the moon phase cycle begins all
over again with a new moon.
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During the period when the new moon is
turning into the full moon, the moon is
waxing.
During the period when the full moon is
turning into the new moon, the moon is
waning.
The new moon occurs when the moon is
between the sun and the Earth.
The full moon happens when the moon
moves behind the Earth.
A solar eclipse happens when the moon passes
between the Earth and the Sun.
 Solar eclipses occur only during new moons.
 We do not see an eclipse at every new moon
because the Earth and the moon do not have
orbits in the same plane.
 Solar eclipses can be total or partial.
 A total solar eclipse happens when the moon
covers the entire sun.
 A partial eclipse happens when the moon does
not cover the entire sun.
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A lunar eclipse happens when the moon goes
into the Earth’s shadow.
 Lunar eclipses happen during full moons.
 These eclipses do not happen during every full
moon because the orbits of the Earth and the
Moon are on different planes.
 When a lunar eclipse occurs, the moon appears
to be red.
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 The moon appears to be red because the Earth’s
atmosphere bends part of the Sun’s light into the
shadow of the Earth and stains the light a red color.
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The dark patches we see on the moon are
called maria, which is the Latin word for seas.
 For years, people believed that the dark patches
were oceans.
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The maria are smooth areas that have basalt
from lava flows.
 Huge meteor impacts had exposed molten rock
beneath the Moon’s surface, so the rock flowed
out to form the lava plains we see today.
The lunar highlands are the bright parts of the moon
that we see around the maria.
 The lunar highlands are not smooth because of all the
impacts they have had with comets and meteors.
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 One prominent crater is Copernicus, which is just to the
west of the Moon’s center.
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The highlands are covered in regolith, which is a fine
rock coating.
 The regolith is there because of consecutive meteors
breaking up and spreading their debris across the Moon’s
surface.
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Since the basalt in the maria is not as reflective as
regolith, the highlands appear lighter than the maria.
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Since we know a lot about the Moon’s geology, history, and
chemistry, we have concluded that it is a barren place.
Even though samples from the Luna and Apollo missions
showed no signs of water altering the Moon’s surface,
NASA’s Lunar Prospector and Clementine detected the
presence of ice within the craters of the Moon’s poles.
Although there is no suggestion that life can be connected to
this discovery, it has been calculated that up to 5.9 billion
tons of water might be frozen at the poles.
 That has caused people to think about colonizing the
Moon.
Apollo 11 was the first mission to put men on the
moon. It included people like astronauts Edwin
“Buzz” Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. The module that
carried the men to the moon was launched on July 16,
1969, and it arrived on the Moon on July 20, 1969.
 During the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, astronaut Edgar
Mitchell used seismic equipment on the Moon to
create small moonquakes. The moonquakes were
recorded so that scientists could learn about the
Moon’s interior.
 The far side of the moon was seen for the first time by
the Russians when they photographed it with Luna 3
on October 7, 1959.
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