Table of Contents

Top 10 moon facts……………………………………………… page 2

How was it formed? .......................... page 3

Composition……………………………….. page 4

How far are we? ………………………………… page 5

Phases……………………………………………... page 6

Orbits…………………………………………………... page 7

Manned/Unmanned mission..……………. page 8

Crossword and a postcard from Aldrin and Armstrong coming

separately!

Buy your piece of the moon now!

Come dine with us on the moon!

1. The moon is not a planet, but a satellite of the Earth. Most people imagine the moon as just as

just a moon, like it doesn’t have a specific

catergory. Actually it’s a satellite!

2. The surface area of the moon is 14,658,000 square

miles or 9.4 billion acres. The Earth is 3.68 times the

size of the moon! And think, Earth isn’t even one of the biggest planets!

3. Only 59% of the moon's surface is visible from earth. Imagine how big it looks from space. There’s a whole 41% you can’t see!

4. The moon rotates at 10 miles per hour compared to the earth's rotation of 1000 miles per hour.

5. From Earth, we always see the same side of the moon; the other side is always

hidden.

6. The dark spots we see on the moon that create the image of the man in the moon are actually craters filled with basalt, which is a very dense material.

7. We all know there was a man on the moon, but did you know that there is one

who stayed there? Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, a Geological Surveyor, who educated the Apollo mission astronauts about craters, never made it into space himself, but it had always been one of his dreams. He was rejected as an

astronaut because of medical problems. After he died, his ashes were placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft on January 6, 1999, which was crashed

into a crater on the moon on July 31, 1999. The mission was to discover if there was water on the moon at the time, but it also served to fulfill Dr Shoemaker's last wish.

8. When Alan Sheppard was on the moon, he hit a golf ball and drove it 2,400 feet, nearly one half a mile.

9. In a survey conducted in 1988, 13% of those surveyed believed that the moon is made of cheese.

10. How close can you get without completely running out of gas? Apollo 11 had only 20 seconds of fuel left when they landed on the moon.

2

Formation of planets, and perhaps the moon begin with loose matter, pulled together by force of gravity over millions of years according to one theory. Five billion years ago there was no sun, nor earth, nor moon. All that existed of our galaxy was a cloud of interstellar dust and gas. It consisted mostly of helium and hydrogen, and bits of dust --mixed together with tiny grains of heavier material that had remained from dying stars.

The cloud was lumpy having an area within, a denser collection of material than others. Since the gravitational force exerted by any object depends on its mass, the gravitational force exerted by this relatively high-density area was correspondingly greater than those surrounding it. Consequently, it would tend to pull more material toward it, further increasing its mass. As a result, its gravitational force yet increases and even more matter pulled into the thickening cloud. Eventually, the most massive region of the cloud would begin pulling everything toward it and the entire cloud collapse.

That caused two things to happen. First, the amount of material in the center would grow enormous, creating a increasingly large, dense sphere in the midst of space. As its density increases, so does the temperature. You can see this same effect in everyday examples, for instance an air pump for tires: --inflate a tire by hand, and the pump becomes warm. This occurs because

when air compresses and becomes denser, temperature will increase. (We would recognize this, by observing a cross-section of the earth, with its cool crust and boiling core... lava that sometimes boils up to the surface through vents, causing volcanoes.)

The second thing that would happen, like an ice skater that draws in her arms as she goes into a spin, the cloud's rotation speeds up as it decreases in size and increases in density. That’s how the moon and planets are started!

3

What is the Moon made of? Start by looking at its surface. This picture

shows it very well. There are light areas and

dark areas. The dark areas are called seas, but

they do not contain water. The seas are flat

regions, whereas the light areas are rugged

and are higher on average. For this reason,

they are also called highlands.

Across the whole surface, craters caused by

meteoric impacts are evident. The

craters are much more enhanced and frequent within the light

areas.

In the years from 1969 to 1972 the Moon has been explored by

man. Astronauts brought back to Earth some samples of lunar

soil, so it has been possible to analyze and date those rocks.

It has been found that the younger lunar rocks are the dark ones,

those of the seas, and that they are 3.2 billion years old. The

older ones are the light rocks of the highlands, and they are 4.6

billion years old.

Even if the mass of the Moon is just one hundredth of that of the

Earth, the ratio of the mass of the Moon over that of the Earth is very

large, if one compares it to the case of the other planets. Leaving aside

the Pluto-Charon system, the Earth-Moon system is indeed a unique case

in the Solar System. Generally speaking, satellites are much smaller than

the planets which hold them into an orbit.

4

Are you wondering how far is the Moon from Earth? Well, the exact

number is an average of 384,399 km, or 238,854 miles.

This number is an average bec ause the Moon

takes an elliptical orbit around the Earth.

Sometimes it’s closer than this average number,

and other times it’s more distant. At its closest

point, called perihelion, the Moon measures

363,104 km from the Earth. And then at the most

distant point of its orbit, known as aphelion, the Moon is 405,696 km

from Earth. This is a big difference: 42,592 km.

Because of this huge difference in kilometers, the size and brightness of the Moon can change dramatically when the full Moon matches up with a close Moon. It can be 15% larger and 30% brighter than an average Moon.

You might be surprised to know that astronomers have actually measured how far the moon is from Earth to within a few centimeters. They’re able to do this because the Apollo astronauts left small reflective mirrors on the surface of the Moon during their last mission. Astronomers on Earth fire a laser pulse at the Moon and measure how long it takes to hit the Moon, bounce off the reflectors and return to Earth. By knowing the speed of light, and timing the return journey of the light pulse, they’re able to calculate the distance to the Moon with incredible accuracy.

5

Have you ever wondered what causes the moon phases? We all know that its appearance changes over time. But why? The good way to understand the phases of the moon is to examine an earth-moon-sun diagram

Diagram Explanation

The illustration may look a little complex at first, but it's easy to explain.

Sunlight is shown coming in from the right. The earth, of course, is at the center of the diagram. The

moon is shown at 8 key stages during its revolution around the earth. The moon phase name is shown

alongside the image. The dotted line from the earth to the moon represents your line of sight

when looking at the moon. To help you visualize how the moon would appear at that point in the cycle,

you can look at the larger moon image. This means for the waning gibbous, third quarter, and

waning crescent phases you have to mentally turn yourself upside down. When you do this,

you'll "see" that the illuminated portion is on your left, just as you see in the large image.

One important thing to notice is that exactly one half of the moon is always illuminated by the sun. Of

course that is perfectly logical, but you need to visualize it in order to understand the phases. At certain

times we see both the sunlit portion and the shadowed portion -- and that creates the various moon

phase shapes we are all familiar with. Also note that the shadowed part of the moon is invisible to the

naked eye; in the diagram above, it is only shown for clarification purposes.

So the basic explanation is that the lunar phases are created by changing angles (relative positions) of the earth, the moon and the sun, as the moon orbits the earth.

6

Earth is one of eight planets in our solar system, located on the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Each of these planets are in an elliptical orbit around the sun, which is located at the center of the solar system. The reason all the planets orbit the sun is because of its gravitational pull.

The Moon completes its orbit around the Earth in approximately 27.3 days (a sidereal month). The Earth and Moon orbit about their common centre of mass, which lies about 4700 km from Earth's centre (about three quarters of the Earth's radius). On average, the Moon is at a distance of about 385000 km from the center of the Earth, which corresponds to about 60 Earth radii. With a mean orbital velocity of 1.023 km/s. the Moon moves relative to the stars each hour by an amount roughly equal to its angular diameter, or by about 0.5°.

The gravitational attraction that the Moon exerts on Earth is the cause of tides in the sea. Tidal flow is synchronized to the Moon's orbit around Earth. This synchronous rotation is only true on average because the Moon's orbit has definite eccentricity.

7

20 JULY 1969 Humans make direct contact with the Moon for the first time when Neil Armstrong takes "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" from NASA's Apollo 11.

13 APRIL 1970 NASA's Apollo 13's oxygen tank explodes en route to the Moon, canceling the mission. The astronauts landed safely back on Earth a few days later.

30 JULY 1971

Apollo 15's lunar module lands on the Moon, taking with it the first manned lunar buggy. Astronauts drive a total of 28 kilometres within 5 kilometres of the landing site

11 DECEMBER 1972 NASA's Apollo 17, the last of the six Apollo manned landers, touches down on the Moon

Since Apollo 16 had

been able to examine

geologic features of

the moon, Apollo 17

carried the first

trained geologist to

walk on the moon’s

surface. This was

also the last J-type

mission. This space

mission was also the

last visit of man to

the moon.

Oct. 4, 1957

First artificial

satellite in USSR

Nov. 3, 1957

A satellite carried first

animal into space in USSR.

April 2008

Orbiter which will observe

solar dynamics from the U.S.!

It will observe the Sun's

activity cycle.

8

June 2010

Japan Proposed two year

mission to Venus to analyse the

planet's climate, observe the

surface using infrared cameras

and detect current or recent

volcanic activity and lightning.

2011

Europe orbiter: This

spacecraft will search

for signs of possible

water ice in the

craters of Mercury