3/5/2012
BARK ABOUT
THE MOON
| Haley Moore & Alexis Willis
Table of Contents Page
Content
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How the Moon was formed The Moon’s composition Moon phases
4……………………………………………………………………………… The Moons size and distance from the Earth 5………………………………………………………………………..………….
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The effect of the Moon on the Earth
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Moon Facts
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Buzz Aldrin
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How the moon was 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.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin photographed by Neil Armstrong during the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969. The Apollo missions brought back 2196 rock samples weighing 382 kg in total.
no wind or water. The Moon is the only natural satellite of the Earth.
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On the moon, there is
Because the Moon is composed mostly of material from Earth, one would expect that it is made of the same elements we find on Earth. To a large extent, that is the case. But because the material resulting from the Giant Impact was thrown out into space in a super heated state and it took time to coalesce into a single object which became the Moon, all of the volatile elements (those that were not chemically locked into heavy compounds) were blown away by the solar wind. Oxygen
42.6%
Magnesium
20.8%
Silicon
20.5%
Iron
9.9%
Calcium
2.31%
Aluminum
0.472%
Nickel
0.314%
Chromium
0.131%
Manganese
0.122%
Titanium
The moons composition: Moon soil contains no fossils of plants or animals, but when this soil is
placed on earth plants, they seem to grow better. Moon rocks are composed of minerals including aluminum, calcium, magnesium, oxygen, silicon, and titanium. Some gases are also trapped in these rocks, such as hydrogen and helium. These gases are said to have reached the moon by solar wind. Astronauts collect two main types of rock, basalt and breccia. Basalt is formed from hardened lava and is made of feldspar, proxene and ilmenite crystals. These minerals were formed at 2200 degrees, which proves that the moon was extremely hot when it was forming. Breccia is made of soil and rock that have been squeezed together when hit by falling objects. The moon's outer crust seems to be solid and hardy but not much is known about its inner material. When Apollo 13 sent part of the Saturn rocket crashing on to the moon, the result was seismic vibrations which lasted for four hours. These vibrations were not expected by the scientists.
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The recognized phases are: new moon, waxing crescent moon, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter and waning crescent moon. That means there are eight phases of the moon. Moon Phases:
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The moons size and distance from the earth: Since the moon's orbit is elliptical (oval-shaped), its distance varies from about 221,463 miles (356,334 kilometers) at perigee (closest approach to Earth) to 251,968 miles (405,503 kilometers) at apogee (farthest point). The average distance from the moon to the Earth is 238,857 miles (384,392 kilometers). The diameter of the Moon is only 3,474 km across. Just for comparison, the diameter of the Earth at the equator is 12,756 km. That’s only 27% the diameter of the Earth. The Moon is also the 5th largest moon in the Solar System, after Ganymede, Titan, Callisto and Io.
The average distance between Earth and Moon is approximately 30 times Earth's diameter The Moon completes its orbit around the Earth in approximately 27.3 days (a sidereal month).
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The effect of the moon on the earth: The gravitational attraction that the Moon exerts on Earth is the cause of tides in the sea. The tidal flow period is synchronized to the Moon's orbit around Earth, but the phase isn't. The tidal bulges on Earth, caused by the Moon's gravity, are carried ahead of the apparent position of the Moon by the Earth's rotation, in part because of the friction of the water as it slides over the ocean bottom and into or out of bays and estuaries. As a result, some of the Earth's rotational momentum is gradually being transferred to the Moon's orbital momentum, resulting in the Moon slowly receding from Earth at the rate of approximately 38 mm per year. At the same time the Earth's ro tation is gradually slowing, the Earth's day thus lengthens by about 15 Âľs every year.
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The moon is not a planet, but a satellite of the Earth. The surface area of the moon is 14,658,000 square miles or 9.4 billion acres Only 59% of the moon's surface is visible from earth. The moon rotates at 10 miles per hour compared to the earth's rotation of 1000 miles per hour. When a month has two full moons, the second full moon is called a blue moon. Another definition of a blue moon is the third full moon in any season (quarter of year) containing 4 total full moons. From Earth, we always see the same side of the moon; the other side is always hidden. The dark spots we see on the moon that create the image of the man in the moon are actually craters filled with basalt, which is a very dense material. The moon is the only extraterrestrial body that has ever been visited by humans. It is also the only body that has had samples taken from it. The first space craft to send back pictures from the moon was Luna 3 (built by the Soviet Union) in October 1959. The moon has no global magnetic field.
The moon is about 1/4 the size of the Earth.
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Since retiring from NASA and the Air Force, Col. Aldrin has remained at the forefront of efforts to ensure America’s continued leadership in human space exploration. He devised a master plan for missions to Mars – the “Aldrin Mars Cycler” – a spacecraft transportation system with perpetual cycling orbits between Earth and Mars. Dr. Aldrin has received three US patents for his rocket systems and schematics. Buzz Aldrin was born in Montclair, New Jersey on January 20, 1930. His mother, Marion Moon, was the daughter of an Army Chaplain. His father, Edwin Eugene Aldrin, was a Colonel in the Air Force, a Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and an aviation pioneer. Buzz was educated at the US Military Academy at West Point, graduating third in his class with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He then joined the Air Force where he flew F86 Sabre Jets in 66 combat missions in Korea, shot down two MIG-15′s, and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross. After a tour of duty in Germany flying F100’s, he went on to earn his Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT and wrote his thesis on Manned Orbital Rendezvous. Selected by NASA in 1963 into the third group of astronauts, Aldrin was the first with a doctorate and became known as “Dr. Rendezvous.” The docking and rendezvous techniques he devised for spacecraft in Earth and lunar orbit became critical to the success of the Gemini and Apollo programs, and are still used today. He also pioneered underwater training techniques, as a substitute for zero gravity flights, to simulate spacewalking. In 1966, on the Gemini 12 orbital mission, Buzz performed the world’s first successful spacewalk, overcoming prior difficulties experienced in all American and Russian extravehicular activity (EVA), and set a new EVA record of 5 ½ hours. Then, on July 20, 1969, Buzz and Neil Armstrong made their historic Apollo 11 moonwalk, becoming the first two humans to set foot on another world. They spent 21 hours on the lunar surface and returned with 46 pounds of moon rocks. The largest worldwide television audience – an estimated 600 million people, witnessed this unprecedented heroic endeavor.
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