What is there in thee, moon, That thou shouldst move My heart so potently? By John Keats

What is there in thee, moon, That thou shouldst move My heart so potently? By John Keats

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.

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 10 22 kg 5.97 x 10 24 kg

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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. After 29.5 days, the moon phase cycle begins all over again with a new moon.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. One prominent crater is Copernicus, which is just to the west of the Moon s center. 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. Since the basalt in the maria is not as reflective as regolith, the highlands appear lighter than the maria.

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.