Tell About Moon?

The moon is not a suitable place for plants and animals. Therefore, no form of life can be found on the moon.

Unlike the earth, the moon has got no atmosphere. Therefore, the lunar days are very hot and the lunar nights are intensely cold.

The moon looks beautiful from the earth but in fact it has up forbidding appearance. It is full of rocks and craters.

When we look at the moon at night we see some dark spots on it. These dark spots are dangerous rocks and craters.

The gravitational pull of the moon is less than that of the earth, so it is difficult to walk on the surface of the Moon.

The journey of the moon may be thrilling but it cannot make our life on the earth happy. It is better to have a happy life on the earth then to go to the moon.

The dark side of the moon is a myth.

In reality both sides of the Moon see the same amount of sunlight however only one face of the Moon is ever seen from Earth. This is because the Moon rotates around on its own axis in exactly the same time it takes to orbit the Earth, meaning the same side is always facing the Earth. The side facing away from Earth has only been seen by the human eye from spacecraft.

There are two bulges in the Earth due to the gravitational pull that the Moon exerts; one on the side facing the Moon, and the other on the opposite side that faces away from the Moon, The bulges move around the oceans as the Earth rotates, causing high and low tides around the globe.

The Moon is moving approximately 3.8 cm away from our planet every year. It is estimated that it will continue to do so for around 50 billion years. By the time that happens, the Moon will be taking around 47 days to orbit the Earth instead of the current 27.3 days.

The Moon has much weaker gravity than Earth, due to its smaller mass, so you would weigh about one sixth (16.5%) of your weight on Earth. This is why the lunar astronauts could leap and bound so high in the air.

The first man to set foot on the Moon in 1969 was Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission, while the last man to walk on the Moon in 1972 was Gene Cernan on the Apollo 17 mission. Since then the Moon has only be visited by unmanned vehicles.

This means that the surface of the Moon is unprotected from cosmic rays, meteorites and solar winds, and has huge temperature variations. The lack of atmosphere means no sound can be heard on the Moon, and the sky always appears black.

These are caused by the gravitational pull of the Earth. Lunar astronauts used seismographs on their visits to the Moon, and found that small moonquakes occurred several kilometres beneath the surface, causing ruptures and cracks. Scientists think the Moon has a molten core, just like Earth.

This was a Soviet craft, which was launched from the USSR. It passed within 5995 km of the surface of the Moon before going into orbit around the Sun.

At 3,475 km in diameter, the Moon is much smaller than the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Earth is about 80 times the volume than the Moon, but both are about the same age.

A prevailing theory is that the Moon was once part of the Earth, and was formed from a chunk that broke away due to a huge object colliding with Earth when it was relatively young.

NASA plans to return astronauts to the moon to set up a permanent space station. Mankind may once again walk on the moon in 2019, if all goes according to plan.

The secret project was during the height cold war was known as “A Study of Lunar Research Flights” or “Project A119” and meant as a show of strength at a time they were lagging behind in the space race.

1.     Anomalistic – the length of time it takes the moon to circle the Earth, measured from one perigee (the closest point in its orbit to Earth) to the next: 27 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes, 37.4 seconds.

Nodical – the length of time it takes the moon to pass through one of its nodes (where it crosses the plane of the Earth's orbit) and return to it: 27 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes, 35.9 seconds.

Sidereal – the length of time it takes the moon to circle the Earth, using the stars as a reference point: 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 11.5 seconds.

Synodical – the length of time it takes the moon to circle the Earth, using the sun as the reference point (that is, the time lapse between two successive conjunctions with the sun – going from new moon to new moon): 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.7 seconds.

It is the synodic month that is the basis of many calendars today and is used to divide the year.

Most reference books will note that because the moon rotates only once during each revolution about the Earth, we never see more than half of its total surface.