Category Man and the Moon

          The Moon’s surface is covered with flat, circular sunken areas known as craters. Some craters like Clavius are so big that they can be seen even without the help of a telescope. Clavius is 235 kilometres wide and is surrounded by huge mountains. Some craters however, are very small in diameter.

          The arrangement of mountains around a large crater is peculiar; they form a circular wall. These mountains slope down gently towards the outer surface while they form a steep slope inside. When Galileo first observed craters, they looked like cups. He named craters so from the Latin word for cup.

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          We know that the Moon does not have a protective layer of atmosphere around it. Likewise, there is no wind, rain or clouds on the Moon. There is only vacuum, and sound cannot travel through vacuum. Therefore, unaided communication is not possible on the Moon. This problem can be solved with the help of a radio.

          The helmets that astronauts wear are equipped with a device that would convert the sound waves to radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic in nature and can travel through vacuum. These radio waves are in turn transmitted to the ground or to their fellow astronauts.

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          You might have observed the sudden flash of a bright moving object in the night sky. These bright trails are left by pieces of rocks in outer space, known as meteors. Millions of meteors speed towards our Earth every day, but they burn up due to the friction caused by Earth’s atmosphere.

          The Moon does not have an atmosphere to blanket itself. Therefore, there is no friction that would burn the pieces of rock approaching the Moon at great speeds. As a result, they crash on the surface of the Moon, forming lunar soil.

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          The Moon’s surface not only has mountains, it also has rocks. Scientists found out that these moon rocks are similar to the igneous rocks on the Earth. They too are formed when molten lava solidifies after cooling down. But, their chemical make-up is different from that of the rocks found on Earth.

          Moon rocks do not contain any traces of water. Much of the Moon’s surface is covered by tiny pieces of rocks, and dust. This is known as lunar soil.

          It takes billions of years to form lunar soil. It is formed when large and small pieces of rocks rain on the surface of the Moon. Unlike the Earth, there is less iron on lunar soil.

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          When seen with the naked eye from the Earth, the Moon looks like a smooth sphere, just like the globe, with dark and light patches here and there.

          A telescopic view of the Moon suggests otherwise. It would not be wrong if someone says that the Moon looks like cheese! Its surface has lots of holes and sometimes, it appears yellowish as well.

          The dark patches on the surface of the Moon are lowlands of rock. These areas were once thought to be water bodies by Galileo. It’s covered by a thin layer of rocky soil. On the other hand, the lighter areas are known as highlands. The highlands are mountainous and rough.

          Huge craters are found in the mountainous areas. Craters are found in the lowlands as well, but in much fewer numbers. The surface is barren and the sky always appears dark.

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          There are many theories that try to explain how the Moon was formed. ‘The Impact Theory’ is a popular one among them. This theory suggests that the Moon is younger than the Earth though it is billions of years old.

          The Impact Theory talks about something that happened about 4.5 billion years ago. Back then, the Earth did not have any satellites. A huge body about the size of Mars hit our planet. This shook off the Earth from its orbit as a result of which, portions of the Earth broke.

          Gradually, these broken pieces came together along with gas and dust, and solidified to form the Moon. This unification had other effects however; molten lava oozed out from the interior of the Moon for the next two billion years.

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          Tracing the origins of the Moon’s name is a bit difficult as the Moon existed from the prehistoric times.

          The Moon has been known by different names since times immemorial. For instance, the Greeks call it Selene, while Moon is known as Luna in Latin. However, the English ‘Moon’ comes from ‘mona’, an Old English word. This word is derived from a Latin word ‘mensis’ meaning month.

          In the olden days, people used the Moon to measure time. The satellites of other planets like Jupiter and Saturn are also commonly known as moons.

          You might have also heard words like lunar orbit and lunar rover. Anything related to the Moon is usually known as lunar.