THE MOON MAG 1st Edition
Published by: Nick Amerson & Conrad Lax
Table of Contents Physical Characteristics of the Moon
Pg. 3-4
Phases of the Moon
Pg. 5-6
Effects of the Moon on the Earth
Pg. 7
Orbit of the Moon
Pg. 8
Missions Timeline
Pg. 9
Extra Activities
Pg. 10-11
Physical Characteristics of the Moon There are many explanations, or theories to how the Earth was formed. Here are five serious that have been proposed for the formation of the Moon (not counting the one involving green cheese).
1. The Fission Theory: The Moon was once part of the Earth and somehow separated from the Earth early in the history of the Solar System. The present Pacific Ocean basin is the most popular site for the part of the Earth from which the Moon came.
2. The Capture Theory: The Moon was formed somewhere else, and was later captured by the gravitational field of the Earth.
3. The Condensation Theory: The Moon and the Earth condensed together from the original nebula that formed the Solar System.
4. The Colliding Planetesimals Theory: The interaction of earth-orbiting and Sunorbiting planetesimals (very large chunks of rocks like asteroids) early in the history of the Solar System led to their breakup. The Moon condensed from this debris.
5. The Ejected Ring Theory: A planetesimal the size of Mars struck the earth, ejecting large volumes of matter. A disk of orbiting material was formed, and this matter eventually condensed to form the Moon in orbit around the Earth.
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Physical Characteristics of the Moon (cont.) Composition 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. A well-known phenomenon is connected to this peculiarity.
Size The diameter of the moon is 3,476 km. Its volume is 2.195 x 1010 km3. It is one-fourth the size of the Earth. The surface area of the moon is 37.9 million square km. The mass of the moon is 7.347 x 1022 km
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Phases of the Moon FULL MOON A full moon appears as an entire circle in the sky. The full moon is given different names, depending on when it appears. For example, the "Harvest moon" is the full moon that appears nearest to the Autumnal Equinox, occurring in late September or early October.
GIBBOUS MOON A gibbous moon is between a full moon and a half moon, or between a half moon and a full moon.
HALF MOON A half-moon looks like half a circle. It is sometimes called a quarter moon (this Moon has completed one quarter of an orbit around the Earth from either the full or new position and one quarter of the moon's surface is visible from Earth).
CRESCENT MOON A crescent moon is part way between a half moon and a new moon, or between a new moon and a half moon.
NEW MOON The new moon is the phase of the moon when the moon is not visible from Earth, because the side of the moon that is facing us is not being lit by the sun.
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Phases of the Moon (cont.)
New Moon-
Waning Gibbous-
Waxing Crescent-
Last Quarter-
First Quarter-
Waning Crescent-
Waxing GibbousFull Moon-
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Effects of the Moon on the Earth The Moon affects the liquid envelope of the Earth, and the oceanic tides in particular. The Moon affects the ocean tides more in some areas than others. For instance, in the channel between the British Isles and the European continent, the tidal range can be 10 meters, compared to what you see in the Pacific, where it is below a meter. The crust of the Earth is also affected. The Moon’s tidal forcing causes significant heating and dissipation of energy to take place. Part of this energy is heating the Earth, and part of it is dissipated by forcing the Moon to recede from the Earth over time. There are people who propose that the tidal effect of the Moon may have helped trigger the convection on the Earth that led to the multi-plate tectonics. The other planets don’t have the same tectonic cycle. For most of them, the crust is like a lid that doesn’t move much horizontally, and the magma and heat are blocked by this lid on the surface. The Earth instead has rolling convective motion that drags the crust, and then the crust plunges back down into the mantle and gets recycled. The Moon has influenced biology in other ways as well. For species living near the coast, the tide is an important factor. When you look at the shorelines, you can recognize different layers of organisms that have adapted to the salt water conditions based on the ebb and flow of the tide. If you would take away the Moon
suddenly, it would change the global altitude of the ocean. Right now there is a distortion which is elongated around the equator, so if we didn’t have this effect, suddenly a lot of water would be redistributed toward the Polar Regions.
During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and the Moon. The separate images were combined to generate this view.
Map showing tidal variations across the globe. Red areas represent large variations in water level; purple areas represent zero or very low tidal variation.
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Orbit of the Moon The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth with respect to the fixed stars about once every 27.3 days (a month). However, since the Earth is moving in its orbit about the Sun at the same time, it takes slightly longer for the Moon to show the same phase to Earth, which is about 29.5 days (its synodic period). Unlike most satellites of other planets, the Moon orbits nearer the ecliptic plane than to the planet's equatorial plane. The Moon's orbit is subtly perturbed by the Sun and Earth in many small, complex and interacting ways. For example, the plane of the Moon's orbital motion gradually rotates, which affects other aspects of lunar motion. These follow-on effects are mathematically described by Cassini's laws.
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Space Missions Timeline 1959
Click here for a list of all lunar instruments.
Luna 1 Pioneer 4 Luna 2 Luna 3
Jan 2, 1959 Mar 3, 1959 Sep 12, 1959 Oct 4, 1959
Flyby Flyby Impact Probe
1961 Ranger 1 Ranger 2
Aug 23, 1961 Nov 18, 1961
Attempted Test Flight Attempted Test Flight
1962 Ranger 3 Ranger 4 Ranger 5
Jan 26, 1962 Apr 23, 1962 Oct 18, 1962
Attempted Impact Impact Attempted Impact
1963 Luna 4
Apr 2, 1963
Flyby
Jan 30, 1964 Jul 28, 1964
Impact Impact
Feb 17, 1965 Mar 21, 1965 May 9, 1965 Jun 8, 1965 Jul 18, 1965 Oct 4, 1965 Dec 3, 1965
Impact Impact Impact Attempted Lander Flyby Impact Impact
1966 Luna 9 Luna 10 Surveyor 1 Lunar Orbiter 1 Luna 11 Surveyor 2 Luna 12 Lunar Orbiter 2 Luna 13
Jan 31, 1966 Mar 31, 1966 May 30, 1966 Aug 10, 1966 Aug 24, 1966 Sep 20, 1966 Oct 22, 1966 Nov 6, 1966 Dec 21, 1966
Lander Orbiter Lander Orbiter Orbiter Attempted Lander Orbiter Orbiter Lander
1967 Lunar Orbiter 3 Surveyor 3 Lunar Orbiter 4 Surveyor 4 Lunar Orbiter 5 Surveyor 5 Surveyor 6
Feb 4, 1967 Apr 17, 1967 May 8, 1967 Jul 14, 1967 Aug 1, 1967 Sep 8, 1967 Nov 7, 1967
Orbiter Lander Orbiter Attempted Lander Orbiter Lander Lander
1968 Surveyor 7 Luna 14 Zond 5 Apollo 7 Zond 6 Apollo 8
Jan 7, 1968 Apr 7, 1968 Sep 15, 1968 Oct 11, 1968 Nov 10, 1968 Dec 21, 1968
Lander Orbiter Return Probe
1969 Apollo 9 Apollo 10
March 3, 1969 May 18, 1969
1964 Ranger 6 Ranger 7 1965 Ranger 8 Ranger 9 Luna 5 Luna 6 Zond 3 Luna 7 Luna 8
Return Probe Crewed Orbiter
Orbiter
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Luna 15 Apollo 11 Zond 7 Apollo 12
Jul 13, 1969 Jul 16, 1969 Aug 7, 1969 Nov 14, 1969
Orbiter Crewed Lander Return Probe Crewed Lander
1970 Apollo 13 Luna 16 Zond 8 Luna 17/Lunokhod 1
Apr 11, 1970 Sep 12, 1970 Oct 20, 1970 Nov 10, 1970
Crewed Lander (aborted) Sample Return Return Probe Rover
1971 Apollo 14 Apollo 15 Luna 18 Luna 19
Jan 31, 1971 Jul 26, 1971 Sep 2, 1971 Sep 28, 1971
Crewed Lander Crewed Lander Impact Orbiter
1972 Luna 20 Apollo 16 Apollo 17
Feb 14, 1972 Apr 16, 1972 Dec 7, 1972
Sample Return Crewed Landing Crewed Landing
1973 Luna 21/Lunokhod 2
Jan 8, 1973
Rover
1974 Luna 22 Luna 23
Jun 2, 1974 Oct 28, 1974
Orbiter Lander
1976 Luna 24
Aug 14, 1976
Sample Return
1990 Hiten
Jan 24, 1990
Flyby, Orbiter, and Impact
1994 Clementine
Jan 25, 1994
Orbiter
1997 AsiaSat 3/HGS-1
Dec 24, 1997
Lunar Flyby
1998 Lunar Prospector
Jan 7, 1998
Orbiter and Impact
2003 SMART 1
Sep 27, 2003
Orbiter
2007 Kaguya (SELENE) Chang'e 1
Sep 14, 2007 Oct 24, 2007
Orbiter Orbiter
2008 Chandrayaan-1 Lunar-A
Oct 22, 2008 Cancelled
Orbiter Orbiter and Penetrators
2009 LRO LCROSS
Jun 18, 2009 Jun 18, 2009
Orbiter Impact
2010 Chang'e 2 ARTEMIS
October 1, 2010 2010
Orbiter Orbiter
2011 GRAIL
September 8, 2011
Orbiter
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The Moon Mag Crossword Puzzle Nick Amerson and Conrad Lax 1
2
3
4 5 7 9
6 8
10
11
Across 3. what dirt on the moon is called 4. name of a spacecraft 9. last phase of the moon phase cycle 11. dark, flat regions on the moon, also called highlands
Down 1. the moon moves in what kind of orbit 2. one major thing that the moon effects on Earth 5. the moon is _ of the size of Earth 6. craters on the moon are caused by this 7. laws that describe how the Moon's orbital motion gradually rotates 8. first phase of the moon phase cycle 10. Theory that the moon was formed somewhere else but overtime gravitated toward Earth
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