Magazine Created by: Luka Ivandic and Stefan Daily
It’s moontacular!
Get mooned!
It has eclipses!
Table of Contents
How It Formed- Page 3 Composition- Page 4 Size/Distance from the earth- Page 5 Phases- Page 6 Orbit- Page 7 Effects on the earth- Page 8
Missions to the moon (only American missions)- Page 9-10
Advertisements/Special Offers- Page 11
How It Formed There is a well believed theory on how the moon was formed, called ‘the giant impact theory’.
An artist’s depiction of how the earth formed.
Although no one can say for sure exactly how our moon came to be, there a few hypothesis and theories of which the ‘the giant impact theory’ is the most compelling and widely accepted. In this theory, the Earth had no moon until it was struck by a rogue planet which instantly vaporized. The impact is said to have created a cloud that reached roughly 13,700 miles or 22,000 kilometers high, where it condensed into solid particles that orbited the Earth. Over time they aggregated into larger moonlets, which eventually combined to form the moon we know today.
This theory is supported by quite a bit of evidence such as: even though the Earth has a large iron core and the moon does not, the moon has exactly the same oxygen isotope composition as the Earth, unlike other planets formed in other parts of the Solar System. This indicates the moon should have been formed from material in Earth’s neighborhood. Another significant piece of evidence comes from the oldest record of Earth’s ocean tides ever found, which were 3.2-billionyear-old rocks from South Africa. Pinstriped circular sand-and-silt layers in the rocks were deposited by daily, fortnightly and monthly tidal cycles. If the moon formed elsewhere, then was captured intact by Earth’s gravity as some theories state, the moon’s orbit would have been extremely elliptical and tidal rock layers would not have shown such normal cycles.
Composition The composition of the Moon is quite different from that of the Earth. The Moon lacks a significant atmosphere and any bodies of water, which eliminates erosion due to weather; it does not possess any form of plate tectonics, it has a lower gravity, and because of its small size, it cools more rapidly. The complex geomorphology of the lunar surface has been formed by a combination of processes, chief among which are impact cratering and volcanism. The Moon is a differentiated body, possessing a crust, mantle and core.
Geological studies of the Moon are based on a combination of Earth-based telescope observations, measurements from orbiting spacecraft, lunar samples, and geophysical data. A few locations were sampled directly during the Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which returned approximately 385 kilograms of lunar rock and soil to Earth, as well as several Exploring Shorty crater during the Apollo missions of the Soviet Luna programme. The Moon is the 17 mission to the Moon. This was the only Apollo mission to include a geologist only extraterrestrial body for which we possess samples (Harrison Schmitt). with a known geologic context. A handful of lunar meteorites have been recognized on Earth, though their source craters on the Moon are unknown. A substantial portion of the lunar surface has not been explored, and a number of geological questions remain unanswered.
Size/ Distance from the Earth There are so many ways to measure the size of the Moon: diameter, volume, surface area, and mass. Let’s look at how big the Moon is in every possible way. The diameter of the Moon is 3,474 km. Need some comparison? The diameter of the Earth is 12,742 km across. That means that the Moon size is roughly 1/4th the size of the Earth. The volume of the Moon is 2.195 x 1010 km3. That sounds like a huge number, but it’s actually only 2% the volume of the Earth. In other words, you could fit 50 moons inside the volume of the Earth. The surface area of the Moon is 37.9 million square kilometers. How big is that? Just for comparison, the surface area of Asia is 44.4 million kilometers. If you could unwrap the Moon, it wouldn’t quite fit inside Asia. The mass of the Moon is 7.347 x 1022 kg. Once again, that sounds like a big number, but the mass of the Moon is only 1.2% the mass of the Earth. If you had a great big scale, and put the Earth on one side, you’d need a pile of moons stacked 81 high to match the mass of the Earth. The Moon is exceptionally large relative to the Earth: a quarter the diameter of the planet and 1/81 its mass. It is the second largest moon orbiting an object in the solar system relative to the size of its planet. Charon is larger relative to the dwarf planet Pluto, at slightly more than 1/9 (11.6%) of Pluto's mass. However, the Earth and Moon are still considered a planet–satellite system, rather than a double-planet system, as their barycentre, the common centre of mass, is located 1,700 km (about a quarter of the Earth's radius) beneath the surface of the Earth.
An earth to moon comparison.
Phases
All of the moon’s multiple phases.
The Moon has phases because it orbits Earth, which causes the portion we see illuminated to change. The Moon takes 27.3 days to orbit Earth, but the lunar phase cycle (from new Moon to new Moon) is 29.5 days. The Moon spends the extra 2.2 days "catching up" because Earth travels about 45 million miles around the Sun during the time the Moon completes one orbit around Earth. At the new Moon phase, the Moon is so close to the Sun in the sky that none of the side facing Earth is illuminated (position 1 in illustration). In other words, the Moon is between Earth and Sun. At first quarter, the half-lit Moon is highest in the sky at sunset, then sets about six hours later. At full Moon, the Moon is behind Earth in space with respect to the Sun. As the Sun sets, the Moon rises with the side that faces Earth fully exposed to sunlight. You can create a mockup of the relationship between Sun, Earth, and Moon using a bright lamp, a basketball, and a baseball. Mark a spot on the basketball, which represents you as an observer on Earth, then play with various alignments of Earth and Moon in the light of your imaginary Sun.
Orbit The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth with respect to the fixed stars about once every 27.3 days (its sidereal period). 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.
The orbit of the moon around the earth.
Effects on the Earth The tides on the Earth are mostly generated by the gradient in intensity of the Moon's gravitational pull from one side of the Earth to the other, the tidal forces. This forms two tidal bulges on the Earth, which are most clearly seen in elevated sea level as ocean tides. Since the Earth spins about 27 times faster than the Moon moves around it, the bulges are dragged along with the Earth's surface faster than the Moon moves, rotating around the Earth once a day as it spins on its axis. The ocean tides are magnified by other effects: frictional coupling of water to Earth's rotation through the ocean floors, the inertia of water's movement, ocean basins that get shallower near land, and oscillations between different ocean basins. The gravitational attraction of the Sun on the Earth's oceans is almost half that of the moon, and their gravitational interplay is responsible for spring and neap tides. Gravitational coupling between the Moon and the bulge nearest the Moon acts as a torque on the Earth's rotation, draining angular momentum and rotational kinetic energy from the Earth's spin. In turn, angular momentum is added to the Moon's orbit, accelerating it, which lifts the Moon into a higher orbit with a longer period. As a result, the distance between the Earth and Moon is increasing, and the Earth's spin slowing down. Measurements from lunar ranging experiments with laser reflectors left during the Apollo missions have found that the Moon's distance to the Earth increases by 38 mm per year (though this is only 0.10 ppb/year of the radius of the Moon's orbit). Atomic clocks also show that the Earth's day lengthens by about 15 microseconds every year, slowly increasing the rate at which UTC is adjusted by leap seconds. Left to run its course, this tidal drag would continue until the spin of the Earth and the orbital period of the Moon matched. However, the Sun will become a red giant long before that, engulfing the Earth.
Ocean in high tide.
Ocean in low tide.
Missions to the Moon Pioneer 4 - Mar 3, 1959 - Flyby 1961 Ranger 1 - Aug 23, 1961 - Attempted Test Flight Ranger 2 - Nov 18, 1961 - Attempted Test Flight 1962 Ranger 3 - Jan 26, 1962 - Attempted Impact Ranger 4 - Apr 23, 1962 - Impact Ranger 5 - Oct 18, 1962 - Attempted Impact 1964 Ranger 6 - Jan 30, 1964 - Impact Ranger 7 - Jul 28, 1964 - Impact 1965 Ranger 8 - Feb 17, 1965 - Impact Ranger 9 - Mar 21, 1965 - Impact 1966 Surveyor 1 - May 30, 1966 - Lander Lunar Orbiter 1 - Aug 10, 1966 - Orbiter Surveyor 2 - Sep 20, 1966 - Attempted Lander Lunar Orbiter 2 - Nov 6, 1966 - Orbiter 1967 Lunar Orbiter 3 - Feb 4, 1967 - Orbiter Surveyor 3 - Apr 17, 1967 - Lander Lunar Orbiter 4 - May 8, 1967 - Orbiter Surveyor 4 - Jul 14, 1967 - Attempted Lander Lunar Orbiter 5 - Aug 1, 1967 - Orbiter Surveyor 5 - Sep 8, 1967 - Lander Surveyor 6 - Nov 7, 1967 - Lander
1968 Apollo 8 - Dec 21, 1968 - Crewed Orbiter 1969 Apollo 10 - May 18, 1969 - Orbiter Apollo 11 - Jul 16, 1969 - Crewed Landing Apollo 12 - Nov 14, 1969 - Crewed Landing 1970 Apollo 13 - Apr 11, 1970 - Crewed Landing (aborted) 1971 Apollo 14 - Jan 31, 1971 - Crewed Landing Apollo 15 - Jul 26, 1971 - Crewed Landing 1972 Apollo 16 - Apr 16, 1972 - Crewed Landing Apollo 17 - Dec 7, 1972 - Crewed Landing 1973 Explorer 49 (RAE-B) - Jun 10, 1973 - Orbiter 1994 Clementine - Jan 25, 1994 - Orbiter 1997 Sat 3/HGS-1 - Dec 24, 1997 - Lunar Flyby 1998 Lunar Prospector - Jan 7, 1998 – Orbiter
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