The Moon
Moon Exploration
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Space Probes
○ Lunar Prospector
○ Clementine
Sputnik 1
○ First artificial satellite,
launched by the Soviet Union in
1957
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
○ First human in space
Moon Exploration
Moon Exploration
Moon Exploration
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Project Mercury
○ Launched the first
American into space
(Alan Shepard)
Apollo 11 (1969)
○ Neil Armstrong and
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin
landed on the moon
NASA Tour of the Moon
Lunar Surface
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Albedo- The percentage of incoming
sunlight that a surface reflects
○ Albedo of the moon = 7%
The moon has no atmosphere to absorb
heat
○ Sunlight can heat up the Moon’s
surface to 127 degrees Celsius
○ The unlit surface can drop to -173
degrees Celsius
Lunar Surface
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Highlands- Heavily cratered, mountainous
regions of the Moon
○ Light color
Maria- Smooth plains, average 3km lower in
elevation
○ Dark color
Impact craters- Formed when objects from
space crash into the lunar surface
Ejecta- Material blasted out during impacts
that fell back to the moon’s surface
Lunar Properties
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Earth’s moon is unique among all
of the moons in the solar system
○ one of the largest moons
compared to the radius and
mass of its planet
○ solid rocky body
○ the orbit is farther from Earth
relative to most
Lunar Composition
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Mostly made of silicates
○ Silicates- made up of
silicon and oxygen
○ Earth’s crust is 96%
silicate
Type of rock in the highlandsbreccia
Type of rocks in the mariabasalt
History of the Moon
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Age of the moon- Between 3.8 and
4.6 billion years old
Contains regolith
○ Layer of loose ground up rock
on the surface
Maria was formed by a lava fill
Evolution of the Moon
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Impact theory
○ The Moon formed as a
result of a collision between
Earth and a Mars sized
object about 4.5 billion
years ago.