The moon can be seen every night except on cloudy days. The moon is a natural satellite orbiting the earth and is the closest celestial body to the earth. There are many stories that have been passed down from word of mouth about the moon since ancient times, but most of them are tales.
Among the many stories about the moon, I prepared 10 things that turned out to be true. Let’s find out together what are some interesting and strange facts about the moon that we looked at every night without thinking, and about the moon we didn’t know well.
1. Birth of the Moon
There have been many theories about the birth of the moon, such as separation theory and simultaneous birth theory, but recently the ‘giant collision theory’ is emerging as the most popular theory. It is a theory that a burn-sized celestial body collided with the earth 4.5 billion years ago in the early days of the solar system, and then the material that escaped into space gathered together to form the current moon. hardened with
2. Only one side of the moon can be seen from Earth
As many of you know, you can only see one side of the moon from Earth. Long ago, the Earth’s gravitational pull slowed down the moon’s rotation to make it the same as its orbital period, so the Earth and the moon were facing each other. Humans were able to see the far side of the moon for the first time in 1959 when the Soviet Lunar 2 spacecraft sent pictures taken while orbiting the far side of the moon.
3. Seeds of trees that went to the moon
The manned spacecraft Apollo 14, launched in 1971, also carried tree seeds. Stewart Lusa, who was a pilot of the Apollo 14 command ship at the time, went to the moon and returned to the moon with seeds of 500 species such as cypress, cedar, and pine in a small can to commemorate the US Forest Service, who served as a forest firefighter in the past. The 450 moon trees planted in the forest at that time are still growing well.
4. There are countless craters on the moon’s surface
There are countless craters on the surface of the moon, which are traces of cosmic rocks such as asteroids. Since there is no volcanic activity on the moon and there is no air or water, erosion does not occur, so the lifespan of the craters once formed is with the moon. The cosmic rocks intensively hit the moon between 3.8 and 4.1 billion years ago.
5. The ebb and flow of the Earth’s oceans occur under the influence of the moon
Most of the ebb and flow of the oceans on Earth where we live is caused by the influence of the moon. At the maximum and the minimum, when the moon and the sun are in a straight line, the tidal force increases, and a lot of seawater escapes and flows in, and the difference is very large. Another interesting fact is that when the seawater moves, the friction between the water and the seafloor slightly deteriorates the Earth’s rotational energy. It is said that the rotational speed slows by about 1.5 milliseconds (one thousandths of a second) per 100 years, but when the Earth’s magnetic force weakens, it affects the moon’s orbit, causing the moon’s orbit to move further and further away.
6. The moon is not a perfect sphere
A full moon in the sky looks like a perfect sphere, but the real moon is not a perfect sphere. It is said to be slightly chrysanthemum-shaped like an egg. The moon’s center of gravity is not exactly centered, but it sits about 2 km toward the Earth, which, in simple terms, has its center of gravity toward the Earth. It is a deformity caused by the wind orbiting the moon with only one side visible to the earth.
7. Earthquakes (Moon Earthquakes) on the Moon
One of the things the Apollo astronauts took with them when they set foot on the moon was a seismometer. When seismographs were placed on the moon’s surface, they could watch the instrument panel record vibrations, which were earthquakes. The moon was not a dead body as we expected. The weak moonshine was occurring several kilometers below the surface of the earth, and the cause is thought to be the Earth’s gravitational pull, and it is said that the surface was slightly cracked and gas was ejected due to the effect.
8. Is Earth’s natural satellite one moon?
The moon is Earth’s only natural satellite. However, the theory that this may not be the case is making the academia turbulent. This is because there is a theory that Crutne, discovered by British amateur astronomer Duncan Waldren in 1997, may become Earth’s second moon. Unlike the moon, the orbit of the asteroid Crutne, which is 5 km in diameter, is curved around the Earth in a horseshoe shape. Because it orbits resonance with the earth, it is also called the second satellite of the earth, but it does not orbit around the earth and easily receives the influence of the surrounding celestial bodies, so it is called a quasi-satellite.
9. Is the moon a planet?
The moon is larger than Pluto and is about a quarter the diameter of the Earth. So some scientists think the moon is closer to a planet. The moon is not a satellite, but a binary system that makes up the Earth-Moon system. Pluto and its moon Charon are seen by some as a binary system.
10. Moon moving away from Earth
The moon is slowly stealing the Earth’s rotational energy, increasing its orbit by 3.8 cm each year, which means it is moving away from the Earth by 3.8 cm each year. At a rate of 3.8 cm per year for 1 billion years, it would move 38.000 km away, which is one tenth of the distance to the moon. What is certain is that when the moon leaves Earth, life on Earth is almost extinct.
