This man, Gene Cerman was the last of the 12 human beings to set foot on the surface of the Moon. Photo Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Only 12 human beings have had the pleasure of walking on the surface of the Moon. The most famous were of course the two Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong […]
The rise and fall of the tides on Earth is caused by the Moon: The elliptical orbits of the Moon around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun have a substantial effect on the Earth’s tides. Once a month when the Moon is closest to the Earth the gravitational pull is greatest, creating bigger […]
From Earth the Moon looks a little different to us every night. Sometimes glowing brightly with the entire face showing, at other times a mere sliver showing, or not visible at all. These changes in the Moon’s appearance are called phases. At some stages as the Moon orbits the Earth we see more of the […]
The surface of the Moon is rocky and covered with craters. Mountains and hills surround the edges of large, flat plains. The lunar mountain ranges, with heights up to 25,000 ft (7,800 m), are comparable to the highest mountains on earth but in general are not very steep. Topographic Map of […]
Temperatures on the moon range from extremely hot, up to 123C (253F) when the sunlight hits the moon’s surface, to a freezing cold minus 153C (-243F) on the dark side. As there is no significant atmosphere on the Moon it cannot trap heat or insulate the surface LRO Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment surface temperature map […]
The Moon moves in a counterclockwise direction with an average orbital speed of about 0.6 miles/sec or 2,160 m.p.h. Because the lunar orbit is elliptical, the distance between the Earth and the Moon varies between about 227,000 miles (365,000 km) at perigee, and about 254,000 miles (409,000 km) at apogee, when the Moon is farthest […]
There is no air on the Moon, but it has recently been announced that water is definitely present. In 2013 NASA funded Lunar research found evidence of water locked in mineral grains, deep beneath the surface. Using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely […]
On July 20th, 1969 at 20.18 UTC, Neil Armstrong was the first man to take a step onto the surface of the Moon, followed by fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The third member of the Apollo 11 mission, Michael Collins, piloted the command spacecraft alone in lunar orbit, until the other two returned just under a […]
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