This page refers to Earth's moon. For other moons in the solar system, please see natural satellite. For other things named Moon see Moon (disambiguation).
The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth. It has no formal name other than "The Moon" although it is occasionally called Luna (Latin for moon) to distinguish it from the generic "moon". The words moon and month come from the same Old Englishroot word.
The Moon is 384,403 kilometers (238,857 miles) distant from the Earth. Its diameter is 3,476 kilometers (2,160 miles).
The near side of the Moon is covered with ~30,000 craters having a diameter of at least 1 kilometre. The largest crater on the Moon, and indeed the largest known crater within the solar system, forms the South Pole-Aitken basin. This crater is located on the far side, near the south pole, and is some 2,240 km in diameter, and 13 km in depth.
The Moon makes a complete orbit of the celestial sphere about every four weeks. Each hour the Moon moves in the sky a distance close to its perceived angular size, or by about 0.5°. The Moon always remains within a path, called the Zodiac, which extends about 8° on either side of the ecliptic. The Moon crosses the ecliptic about once every 2 weeks.
During the ancient period, it was not uncommon for cultures to believe that the Moon died each night, thus descending into the underworld; other cultures believed that the Moon chased the Sun (and vice-versa). By the medieval period, some believed that the Moon was a "perfectly smooth" sphere; and some believed that there were oceans there (see: maria). As late as the 1920s (or so), it was believed that the Moon might have a breatheableatmosphere (or so science fiction of the period seems to indicate). In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon.
Earth and Moon orbit about a common center of mass, which lies about 4700 km from Earth's center. Since the common center of mass of the Earth-Moon system (the barycenter) is located within Earth, Earth's motion is more commonly described as a "wobble". When viewed from Earth's North pole, Earth and Moon rotate counter clockwise about their axes, Moon orbits Earth counter-clockwise and Earth orbits the Sun counter-clockwise.
The Moon's orbital plane about Earth is inclined by 5 degrees with respect to Earth's orbital plane about the Sun (the ecliptic plane). The Moon's orbital plane along with its spin axis rotates clockwise with a period of 18.6 years, always maintaining the 5 degree inclination. The points where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic are called the lunar "nodes": the North (or ascending) node is where the Moon crosses to the North of the ecliptic; the South (or descending ) node where it crosses to the South. Solar eclipses occur when a node coincides with the new Moon; lunar eclipses when a node coincides with the full Moon.
The inclination of the Moon's orbit makes it rather unlikely that the Moon formed along with Earth or was captured later; its origin is the subject of strong scientific debate. The most generally accepted theory states that the Moon originated from the collision between the young Earth and an impactor the size of Mars (sometimes called Theia) and was formed from material ejected from Earth as a result of the collision. This is called the Giant Impact theory. New simulations published in August 2001 support this theory . This theory is also corroborated by the fact that the Moon has all the same minerals as Earth, albeit in different proportions.
The geological epochs of the Moon are defined based on the dating of various significant impact events in the Moon's history.
More than 4.5 billion years ago, the surface of the Moon was a liquid magma ocean. Scientists think that one component of lunar rocks, KREEP (K-potassium, Rare Earth Elements, and P-phosphorus), represents the last chemical remnant of that magma ocean. KREEP is actually a composite of what scientists term "incompatible elements": those which cannot fit into a crystal structure and thus were left behind, floating to the surface of the magma. For researchers, KREEP is a convenient tracer, useful for reporting the story of the volcanic history of the lunar crust and chronicling the frequency of impacts by comets and other celestial bodies.
The lunar crust is composed of a variety of primary elements, including uranium, thorium, potassium, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, aluminum and hydrogen. When bombarded by cosmic rays, each element bounces back into space its own radiation, in the form of gamma rays. Some elements, such as uranium, thorium and potassium, are radioactive and emit gamma rays on their own. However, regardless of what causes them, gamma rays for each element are all different from one another — each produces a unique spectral "signature", detectable by a spectrometer. A complete global mapping of the Moon for the abundance of these elements has never been performed.
The dark and relatively featureless lunar plains are called maria, latin for seas, since they were believed by ancient astronomers to be water-filled seas. They are actually vast ancient basaltic lava flows that filled the basins of large impact craters. The lighter-colored highlands are called terrae. Maria are found almost exclusively on the Lunar nearside, with the Lunar farside having only a few scattered patches. Scientists think that such asymmetry of the lunar crust most likely accounts for the Moon's off-set center of mass. Crustal asymmetry may also explain differences in lunar terrain, such as the dominance of smooth rock (maria) on the near side of the Moon.
Blanketed atop the Moon's crust is a dusty outer rock layer called regolith. Both the crust and regolith are unevenly distributed over the entire Moon. The crust ranges from 38 miles (60 km) on the near side to 63 miles (100 km) on the far side. The regolith varies from 10 to 16 feet (3 to 5 meters) in the maria to 33 to 66 feet (10 to 20 meters) in the highlands.
In 2004, a team led by Dr. Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University using images taken by the Clementine mission determined that four mountainous regions on the rim of the 73 km wide Peary crater at the Moon's north pole appeared to remain illuminated for the entire Lunar day. These unnamed "mountains of eternal light" are possible due to the Moon's extremely small axial tilt, which also gives rise to permanent shadow at the bottoms of many polar craters. No similar regions of eternal light exist at the less-mountainous south pole. Clementine's images were taken during the northern Lunar hemisphere's summer season, and it remains unknown whether these four mountains are shaded at any point during their local winter season.
Some water molecules, however, may have literally hopped along the surface and gotten trapped inside craters at the lunar poles. Due to the very slight "tilt" of the Moon's axis, only 1.5°, some of these deep craters never receive any light from the Sun — they are permanently shadowed. Clementine has mapped ([1]) Peary crater at the lunar south pole ([1]) which is shadowed in this way. It is in such craters that scientists expect to find frozen water if it is there at all. If found, water ice could be mined and then split into hydrogen and oxygen by solar panel-equipped electric power stations or a nuclear generator. The presence of usable quantities of water on the Moon would be an important factor in rendering lunar habitation cost-effective, since transporting water (or hydrogen and oxygen) from Earth would be prohibitively expensive.
The equatorial Moon rock collected by Apollo astronauts contained no traces of water. Neither the Lunar Prospector nor more recent surveys, such as those of the Smithsonian Institution, have found direct evidence of lunar water, ice, or water vapour. Lunar Prospector results, however, indicate the presence of hydrogen in the permanently shadowed regions, which could be in the form of water ice.
Compared to that of Earth, the Moon has a very weak magnetic field. While some of the Moon's magnetism is thought to be intrinsic (such as a strip of the lunar crust called the Rima Sirsalis), collision with other celestial bodies might have imparted some of the Moon's magnetic properties. Indeed, a long-standing question in planetary science is whether an airless solar system body, such as the Moon, can obtain magnetism from impact processes such as comets and asteroids. Magnetic measurements can also supply information about the size and electrical conductivity of the lunar core — evidence that will help scientists better understand the Moon's origins. For instance, if the core contains more magnetic elements (such as iron) than Earth, then the impact theory loses some credibility (although there are alternate explanations for why the lunar core might contain less iron).
Since the distance between the Moon and the Earth is very slightly increasing over the time, the perceived size of the Moon is decreasing. This means
that several million years ago the Moon always completely covered the Sun on solar eclipses so that no annular eclipses occurred. Likewise, in several million years the Moon will no longer cover the Sun completely and no non-annular eclipses will occur.
Eclipses happen only if Sun, Earth and Moon are on one line, with the Earth in the middle, e.g. only on a full or new moon.
Click image for description
![[1]](http://www.lpi.usra.edu/research/clemen/2polar.gif){kind=link}