Located 239,000 miles from Earth, the Moon is by far the largest and brightest thing in our sky. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a myriad of mysteries. From clouds of dust that have followed the moon for millions of years to periods of volcanic eruptions on the moon's surface, this closest natural satellite to us is more interesting than you might think.
Here are 25 awesome and unusual facts about the moon!
1. Gravity on the Moon is much weaker
Ever fantasized about being an astronaut and walking on the moon? If you're lucky enough to actually do it, then your body will make some major adjustments. It's not at all like it's on Earth. While our bodies are accustomed to gravity here, only one-sixth of the force on the moon pulls you back to the surface.
2. The United Nations has a treaty that "governs" the moon
In the 60s of the 20th century, when the United States and the USSR were fighting for the conquest of space, the UN knew that this question would definitely arise. The United Nations did not leave it to the "discoverer's safekeeping" and the rules had to be made clear through the Outer Space Treaty. It says the moon or other planets can only be used "for the benefit of all nations."
3. The USSR was the first to land on the moon
In 1959, a decade before two American astronauts landed on the moon, the Soviet Union's Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach the moon. Seven years after that mission, Luna 9 and Luna 12 sent back the first images of the moon to Earth. Unfortunately for the Russians, these achievements are completely overshadowed by the United States. Now all I remember is the moonwalk!
4. The temperature will plummet to minus 387 degrees Celsius
You may know that the moon is not a warm place just by looking at it. The Earth is fortunate to be protected by an atmosphere that filters the heat of the sun and the cold of outer space. The Moon does not have this luxury. That's why in places where the sun doesn't shine, the temperature drops to minus 387 degrees Fahrenheit.
The other extreme is no better, with temperatures reaching around 260 degrees in sunny places – about double the highest ever recorded in the United States.
5. The moon is moving away from us
Every year, the distance of the Moon from the Earth increases by 3.7846 centimeters. This distance is imperceptible to the naked eye and was not noticed by scientists until recently. They were able to measure precise distances by firing laser pulses at the Moon and recording the time it would take to reach the Moon and reflect back to Earth again.
According to their calculations, the Moon will continue to move away for the next 15 billion years. Even then, it won't be far enough away from Earth's gravity, so there's nothing to worry about right now.
6. The synchronous rotation of the Moon with the Earth creates a "dark side"
You may have heard of the "dark side of the moon", but how exactly does it work? This happens through a phenomenon called "synchronous rotation", and even if you don't feel it, the Earth is spinning at exactly the same speed as the Moon orbiting the Earth, which takes 27.3 days for the Earth and 27 days for the Moon. But this does not mean that the same part of the Moon is visible at all times.
Because of the way the Moon orbits the Earth, it goes through "phases" where the Sun illuminates different parts – such as a quarter moon, half moon, and full moon. Of the entire cycle, only 59% is visible. The other 41% is called the "dark side", but since it actually gets about the same amount of sunlight, it is more accurate to call it the "far side".
7. There is a cloud of dust around the moon
The surface of the moon may look calm, but it is constantly bombarded. Not by anything as big as a planet, but by much smaller meteorites. The surface of the moon is jagged and riddled with craters, and the rocks the size of ping-pong balls are about 100 per day at a rate. Larger and smaller impacts produce tiny dust particles that eject from the surface.
These constant collisions cause a cloud of dust to appear around the satellite, calling a dust exosphere that produces a soft glow on its horizon.
8. The Moon does not have a magnetic field
You may not always realize it, but we use the Earth's magnetic field for a range of purposes, from medical devices like MRI machines to credit cards in wallets. More importantly, this power protects our planet from the threat of solar wind and radiation. It is believed that the Moon once had an equally strong magnetic field.
Geophysicists have come to this conclusion based on rocks brought back from the moon, which are likely to have signs of a strong magnetic field that lasted for 2 billion years. But recent evidence proves this wrong, suggesting that these magnetic charges come from meteor impacts.
9. The Moon was once volcanically active
The moon seems to be a cold place, but if you had been there about 4 billion years ago, you would have seen a hotbed of volcanic activity. Deep on the surface of dry rocks, the Moon is like the Earth, with different layers, from the crust to the mantle, with the core in the center. In the core here, temperatures can reach more than 2,500 degrees, enough to produce molten liquid iron. Billions of years ago, this lava seeped to the surface, flowed through uneven textures, and smoothed it with heat.
Scientists believe there have been no active volcanoes for about 3 billion years, partly explaining why all the craters are so obvious. But recent studies have corrected this, finding evidence of a volcanic eruption about 50 million years ago. It may sound like a long time ago, but in the history of the universe, it's only a small part. That was around the time when dinosaurs and mammals became extinct and took over, eventually leading to humans.
10. Brightness of the earth
There's nothing more wonderful than looking up at the night sky on a bright full moon. But what if you look at it from another angle? From the moon, you have to be on the near side of the moon. And then you can observe the Earth changing from the crescent moon to a quarter and finally the full Earth. Our Earth will be easier to see because it is four times the size and 100 times brighter than the Moon.
11. There is a naming system for lunar craters
On the Moon, however, the situation is different with craters. There are scars left by hundreds of millions of impacts on the Moon. In fact, there are more than 500 million craters. The larger ones have names, usually astronomers, astronauts, and historical figures.
For example, the Apollo Basin was named after the mission that sent the first humans to the moon. The onus falls on the International Astronomical Union.
12. The craters of the moon preserve ancient water ice
For centuries, experts predicted that there would be water on the moon, but it wasn't until the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 used high-tech equipment to confirm it. Infrared light analysis was used to detect ice deep in the moon's polar craters. Later exploration has also found water elsewhere. Some areas are always shrouded in large craters, acting as "cold traps" with temperatures below minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
On a smaller scale, water exists in miniature "cold traps" that cover about 40,000 square kilometers of the moon's surface. The required extreme conditions explain why there isn't much water on the moon — about; Everywhere and about 100 times less than in the Sahara Desert. How did it get there? It's still up for debate, but many scientists believe it may have come from Earth during the formation of the moon.
13. The two sides of the moon are very different
Ever heard the saying don't judge people by their appearance? The same goes for the moon. Ever since humans started looking up at the moon, most people believe that the moon is similar in every way. That's why it was shocking when the Soviet Luna 3 first photographed the far side of the moon in 1959.
The photographs reveal a huge difference from what we see in the close-up. While the near side has black smooth spots where lava once flowed, the far side is covered by a number of smaller craters. One reason to be able to have a huge collision at the south pole of the moon a billion years ago. This may have triggered volcanic activity on one side but not the other.
14. NASA is building a base camp on the moon
Almost 60 years have passed since the first human landing on the moon. But in the future, this type of travel may become more common. NASA plans to build the base camp for the Artemis mission. The project aims to lay the groundwork for further exploration of space by installing telescopes and equipment.
This will set up camps in Antarctica to maximize the use of solar energy and frozen water. The structures had to be lightweight, and one idea was to use a 3D printer on the moon, with lunar dust as the main material.
15. The Moon is formed by an impact with the Earth
In terms of origin stories, the moon has a very good story. Both the Earth and the Moon were formed by dust and rocks orbiting a young star slowly clumping together over millions of years. Then, these larger, roughly Martian-sized objects began to collide with each other until one of them collided with the young Earth to create the Moon.
This theory is supported by hundreds of pounds of material brought back by the Apollo astronauts. The analysis found that the Moon and Earth are composed of similar components, reinforcing their origins is related.
16. Trees are grown from "moon seeds".
In the heyday of lunar exploration, in the 70s of the 20th century, a NASA mission sent hundreds of seeds into space to study the effects of microgravity and help answer this question. This was not the main goal of the mission, in fact, a few years later, even NASA did.
After the mission, the seeds were quarantined along with the astronauts and then planted across the United States, including flight centers, parks, and schools. Although no proper records are kept, some of these moon trees have grown successfully.
17. A moonquake means that the moon has become smaller
Just like the earthquakes we experience, the tectonic plates of the earth's crust rub against each other deep at the surface, and there is a similar phenomenon on the moon. There, of course, it makes more sense to call it a "moonquake" and the process is a little different. Conversely, some of the seismic tremors experienced on the Moon come from the collision of meteoroids with the surface of the Moon.
The other type, "shallow moonquakes", comes because the interior of the Moon is cooling and shrinking. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, weight has dropped by about 150 feet, which doesn't sound like much. But this is still enough to cause a rebound in the earth's crust in... Between Richter 2 and 5 – almost enough to damage the building.
18. The Moon's atmosphere used to be thicker
About 3.5 billion years ago, the atmosphere on the Moon was 1.5 times thicker than the atmosphere on Mars today. This one comes from the massive amount of carbon dioxide that is released, which transmits heat through atmospheric currents, protecting more of the surface than we see today.
As far as we know, the thicker atmosphere didn't last long and never reached the point where it was as habitable as Earth, but it shows how much the Moon has changed over the years.
19. The moon controls the tides
The gravitational pull of the Earth keeps the Moon in orbit, but at the same time, the Moon has a huge impact on the Earth. The most striking of these is in our oceans, which the Moon pulls towards it.
The Moon is created to have its highest tide closest to Earth and its farthest point to Earth as its low tide. There are two times a month when the "spring tide" is generated, the earth, the moon, and the sun are lined up
20. The moon will soon have its own time zone
Time zones seem natural to us here on Earth. It's a way of standardizing different regions so that we can communicate and organize with each other. On the moon, however, this has always been a topic of debate. As missions to the moon have become more common, the concept of a base is taking shape, and scientific organizations have discussed how they came up with lunar time zones.
As it stands, any country that launches a mission into space uses its own time zone as an anchor. Part of the difficulty with the lunar time zone is that the clock on the moon moves slightly faster, about 56 microseconds per day faster than on Earth.
21. There is no sound on the moon because nothing transmits sound waves
On the moon, no one can hear you scream. Not only because you're too far away, but also because you can't make a sound.
When there is a small layer of gas on the moon that is not enough to make up the atmosphere, it is definitely not enough to scream. That's because the sound is made through vibrato, and it needs something to vibrate. On Earth, the medium is air. But in the vacuum of space, there is no air, nothing to vibrate - so there is no sound.
22. Some animals use moonlight to communicate
Forget about migration, some animals have even found a different way of speaking because of the moon. Eagle owls are one of them. They communicate with the moon in different phases.
If there is little moonlight, they will emit a silent call signal. Under a rounder the moon, these owls use more visual communication methods and sit higher up in the trees.
23. The moon is believed to be the culprit of mental illness
You might wonder why anything related to the moon is called "moon" – lunar eclipses, Chinese New Year, the surface of the moon. It comes from the goddess Luna, worshipped in ancient Rome, representing the moon and Sol, representing the sun.
There are other words that originate from the same origin, such as "madman", as it is believed that mental illness is influenced by the moon.
24. There is human excrement on the moon
The photograph of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Audlin stepping onto the surface of the moon is one of the most famous in history, especially with the American flag planted.
Some signs are still upright in place, but they're not the only ones left there. The astronauts did not take with them a range of equipment, such as cameras and geological tools. In fact, 96 bags of feces were left behind. Didn't anyone teach them to clean behind you?
25. People claim to sell real estate on the moon
With housing prices and inflation out of control, would you consider moving to the moon? Although technically legal, an enterprising real estate agent has apparently sold $12 million worth of lunar land.
The man, Dennis Hope, believes there is a loophole in the Outer Space Treaty that prohibits only national claims to sovereignty — possibly allowing private ownership of lunar land. The United Nations has declared this risky act null and void. It turns out that the treaty does apply to both States and individuals. But that didn't stop Hope from creating a website to sell an acre of land for $19.99, what a bargain!