Here’s some of my favorite things about our Moon:
- Moon Map: Humans (and spacecraft) have mapped the surface of the moon. There are light mountain highlands and dark lava seas called “mares.” Impact craters from space rocks give the moon texture and faint colors from minerals like iron and titanium.
- Moon Dirt: The moon is made up of rock and dust. Moon dirt is called regolith. It is very light and has sharp fragments, like sand. NASA is experimenting with ways we can use regolith as building material and growing soil for future human colonies.
- Moon Orbit: It takes 27 days for the moon to orbit the Earth. We always see the same side of moon, as the moon it is tidal locked with Earth. The side we can see is the near side, and the other side is the far side. As the moon orbits earth, the amount of sunlight we see reflecting from the moon changes. This changing light is called the phases of the moon. A full moon is when the moon is behind Earth. A new moon is when the moon is in front of Earth.
- Solar Eclipse: The moon can fully block the sun during solar eclipses, even though the moon is way smaller. From our perspective on Earth, closer objects look larger. The moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, and about 400 times closer. This “cosmic coincidence” won’t last forever, though. In a few billion years the moon will have drifted farther away from Earth, making it only partially block the sun.
There so many more interesting facts about the moon. Good luck exploring!
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