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Posted on May 25, 2009 by Aura Mirchandani | Posted under   Science


Different things about Moon that you need to know about



We all know about the Moon and the importance of this knowledge. There are, however, many interesting facts about Moon that many of us are not aware of. Knowing these things would not only increase our intelligence but also will be one of the most interesting things that we learned about. If you read Jules Verne’s “From the earth to Moon”, I am sure you were intrigued until the last page of the book, even though the content was imaginary. You can imagine how intrigued you will be if you read about the true facts about the Moon.

Let’s start by describing the Moon. It is the only natural satellite that our planet – the Earth – has. Moon, also sometimes called Luna, is approximately 384403 kilometers away from Earth. This distance is approximately 238857 miles. The diameter of the Moon is 3476 kilometers or 2160 miles, whichever you prefer the most. When talking about the moon, people will usually mention two sides of the moon – the visible side and the dark side of the Moon.

There are several interesting facts about the Moon’s rotation. For example, just about every 28 days (roughly speaking) the Moon makes an orbit around the Earth. When the Moon rotates, it keeps one of its sides towards the Earth (with some variation). This type of rotation is sometimes called the synchronous rotation. The interesting fact is that there is no radio communication with spacecrafts when they are on the dark side of the Moon.

Because of the Moon’s gravitational pull force on Earth we see such an observable fact as the occurrence of tides in the sea. There are two types of tidal bulges: in the direction of the Moon and in the direction away from the Moon. The same effect is present on the Moon. The tides from the Earth are also present on the Moon’s surface. There are many interesting facts about tides and if you are interested in these facts, you can find more detailed scientific information on this topic.

There are many important facts about the Moons surface. For example, there are more than 30000 large craters with a diameter of more than one kilometer and many more craters of a smaller size. The Moon’s plains (dark colored on the map) are also present mostly on the near side of the Moon (very rare on far side of the Moon) and are called the maria. The Moon’s highlands are called the terrae and have a brighter color on the Moon’s map, as compared to the plains.

As far as the atmosphere, the Moon has a very insignificant atmosphere that is primarily cased by the discharge of gases from the Moon’s interior surface and the solar wind that could be trapped because of the Moon’s gravity field.

The presence of water on the moon was and still is one of the most important questions that many professionals in this field ask themselves. No direct hard evidence was found that proves whether the Moon has water, evaporated water or ice. However, the Clementine mission outcomes propose that the regions of lunar surface that are permanently shadowed could have small frozen pockets of water ice.

There were numerous missions to Moon, mostly led by Soviet Union and United States space agencies. Many of these missions were manned and many were unmanned. Numerous examples that fall into these categories could be mentioned. Some countries have future plans for Moon exploration.



About The Author:

Aura Mirchandani is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory.



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