This website is not be used by those who seek the moon as a secret base to conquer earth, that includes you kling on high command.
Webite on the moon
The first people on the moon, and exploration of the moon.
Was it a hoax.
What is the moon like.
Links to sites
The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth.
orbit: 384,403 kilometers from
Earth
diameter: 3476 km
mass: 7.35e22 kg
Over(view) the moon
The Moon is the second brightest object in the night sky after the Sun (what about the traffic light outside my house). The Moon orbits Earth once per month(owwwwwww owwwwww I remember now, that Moon), the angle between the Earth, the Moon and the Sun changes; we see this as the cycle of the Moon's phases. The time between new moons is 29 and a half days.
Due to it's size and composition, our Moon is often classified as a terrestrial "planet" with Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
Earth's first vistor to the Moon was the Soviet Union spacecraft Luna II in 1959. It is the only planet other than earth to have been visited by humans (What about Planet Hollywood, or the Vulcan planet). The first landing was on July 20, 1969. The last was in December 1972. The Moon is also the only body from which samples have been returned to Earth.
The gravitational forces between Earth and the Moon has an affect on both bodies. The most obvious is tides. The Moon's gravitational attraction is stronger on the side of the Earth nearest the Moon. So Earth, and particularly oceans are stretched toward the Moon. The effect is much stronger in the ocean water than in the solid crust so the water bulges are higher. And because the Earth rotates much faster than the Moon moves in its orbit, the bulges move around Earth about once a day giving two high tides per day (and low tides too).
Earth is not totaly fluid. The Earth's rotation carries Earth's bulges just ahead of the area directly below the Moon. This means the force between Earth and the Moon is not exactly along the line between their centers producing a torque on the Earth and an accelerating force on the Moon. This causes a transfer of rotational energy from Earth to the Moon, slowing down Earth's rotation by 1.5 milliseconds/century and raising the Moon into a higher orbit by 3.8 centimeters per anum.
The nature of this gravitational interaction is also responsible for the fact that the Moon rotates synchronously.The rotation of the moon is locked in phase with the orbit of the earth. So the same side always facesthe Earth. Eventually, the Earth's rotation will be slowed to match the Moon's period, too, as is the case with Pluto and Charon.
The Moon has no atmosphere.
The Moon's crust averages 68 km thick. Below the crust is a mantle and probably a small core. Unlike the Earth, however, the Moon's interior is no longer active. Curiously, the Moon's center of mass is offset from its geometric center by about 2 km in the direction toward the Earth. Also, the crust is thinner on the near side.
There are two primary types of terrain on the Moon: the heavily cratered and very old highlands and the relatively smooth and younger maria. The maria (which comprise about 16% of the Moon's surface) are huge impact craters that were later flooded by molten lava. Most of the surface is covered with regolith, a mixture of fine dust and rocky debris produced by meteor impacts. For some unknown reason, the maria are concentrated on the near side. Maybe the mantle was drawn toward earth.
Most of the craters on the near side are named for famous figures in the history of science such as Tycho, Copernicus, and Ptolemaeus. Features on the far side have more modern references such as Apollo, Gagarin and Korolev.
A total of 382 kg of rock samples were returned to the Earth by the Apollo and Luna programs. These provide most of our detailed knowledge of the Moon. They are particularly valuable in that they can be dated. Even today, more than 30 years after the last Moon landing, scientists still study these precious samples.
Most rocks on the surface of the Moon seem to be between 4.6 and 3 billion years old. This is a fortuitous match with the oldest terrestrial rocks which are rarely more than 3 billion years old. Thus the Moon provides evidence about the early history of the Solar System not available on Earth.
Prior to the study of the Apollo samples, there was no consensus about the origin of the Moon. There were three principal theories: co-accretion which asserted that the Moon and the Earth formed at the same time from the Solar Nebula; fission which asserted that the Moon split off of the Earth; and capture which held that the Moon formed elsewhere and was subsequently captured by the Earth. None of these work very well. But the new and detailed information from the Moon rocks led to the impact theory: that the Earth collided with a very large object (the size of Mars or more) and that the Moon formed from the ejected material. There are still details to be worked out, but the impact theory is now widely accepted.
The Moon has no global magnetic field. But some of its surface rocks exhibit remanent magnetism indicating that there may have been a global magnetic field early in the Moon's history.
With no atmosphere and no magnetic field, the Moon's surface is exposed directly to the solar wind. Over its 4 billion year lifetime many ions from the solar wind have become embedded in the Moon's regolith. Thus samples of regolith returned by the Apollo missions proved valuable in studies of the solar wind.
Over time, comets and meteorites continuously bombard the surface. Many of these objects are water-rich. Energy from sunlight splits this water into hydrogen and oxygen, both of which fly off into space immediately. However, it has been hypothesized that significant traces of water remain on the Moon, either on the surface, or within the crust. The results of the Clementine mission suggested that small, frozen pockets of water ice remnants of water-rich comet impacts may be in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar crust. Although the pockets are thought to be small.
The first people on the moon, and exploration of the moon.
The Cold War inspired space race between the Soiet Union and the USA
led to a massive improvement in space exploration. The US was the first to land
humans on the moon in 1969, but Many scientifically important steps, such as the
first photographs of the dark side of the moon in 1959, were first achieved by
the Soviet Union.
The first man-made object to reach the Moon was the unmanned
Soviet Union ship Luna 2, which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959. The
dark side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959 by the Soviet
Union probe Luna 3. Luna 9 was the first probe to soft land the Moon and transmit
pictures in February 3, 1966. It was important to prove a lander would not sink
into a thick layer of dust, as was feared. The first artificial satellite of the
Moon was the Soviet Union probe Luna 10. The first robot lunar rover to land on
the Moon was the Soviet Union vessel Lunokhod 1 on November 17, 1970.
On December 24, 1968, in Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders became the first human beings to see the dark side of the Moon with their own eyes. Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first man to walk on the surface was Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11 His famous lines "this is one small step for man and a giant leap for man kind". The last man to stand on the Moon was Eugene Cernan, who as part of the mission Apollo 17 walked on the Moon in December 72. Numerous activites were done on the moon, but the most amusing was space golf. Making golf the first sport to be played on to moon.
Moon samples have been brought back to Earth by missions.
On January 14, 2004, US President George W. Bush called for a plan to return manned missions to the Moon by 2020, as preperation for landing on the red planet. NASA's plan to accomplish the goal was announced on March 19, 2005, and was promptly dubbed Apollo 2.0 by critics.
The European Space Agency plans to explore the Moon. European spacecraft Smart 1 entered the lunar orbit in November 2004., with X-ray mapping of the Moon.
The People's Republic of China expressed ambitious plans for exploring the Moon.
From
the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's there were 65 moon landings, but after Luna 24
in 1976 they stopped. The Soviet Union started focusing on Venus and space stations,
and the US on Mars.
nineplanets.org/luna.html Website on the moon
inconstantmoon.com/Explore the moon with a tour (only by internet).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon Website
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000515.html have you ever seen a halo around the Moon
A site on records to do with the Solar System, like which mountain is tallest,
A space, clock, saying how many people have landed on each planet
What does Earth have to defend off alien attack
A Multiple Choice Quiz on Space
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