After a word on how it got there this mainly treats the geography and physical features of the moon.

1. Our Favorite
Little
Satellite
The Moon
by Moira Whitehouse PhD

2. Since the Moon, like
Earth is a rocky body
and it is not on fire, it
does not shine.
It glows because light
from the Sun reflects
from the Moon, just as
it would from the Earth
if we could get far
enough away to
observe it.

3. Although it looks small up there in the sky, the
moon is a
pretty large
hunk of
rock. The
diameter of
the Moon is
about ¼ the
diameter of
the Earth, but
Wikipedia commons
because it is made from lighter stuff, it is only
1/6 of Earth’s mass.

4. Because the Moon’s mass is less , its gravity is
also less than Earth’s—about one-sixth as
much.
Since weight If this man
depends on weighed
240 lbs on
gravity, everythi
Earth, he
ng on the Moon would
would weigh weigh only
about one-sixth 40 lbs on
as much as it the Moon.
does on Earth.

5. This boy weighs
60 pounds on
Earth.

6. On the Moon he
would only weigh
10 pounds.

7. Also, everything you lifted would be much
lighter on the Moon that it would be on
Earth. However, its mass (the amount of
matter in it) would not change.

8. Astronaut Alan Shepard struck two golf balls
with a golf club on the Moon, driving them, as
he jokingly put it, "miles and miles and miles."

9. Because it has less gravity, astronauts
made some fantastic jumps on the Moon.

10. Remember the gravitational pull of the
Moon though less than that of the Earth
causes water in the oceans to rise and fall
resulting in tides.

11. Thinking about being on the Moon…
The following should interest future astronauts:
Water on the Moon?
Atmosphere on the Moon?
The landforms on the Moon?

12. Scientists recently
found up to a billion
gallons of water ice in
the floor of a
permanently-shadowed
crater near the moon's
Water??? south pole. That's
enough, said
researchers, to fill
1,500 Olympic-size
swimming pools, all
from one crater. If
there is ice there, it
South pole of Moon probably exists in other
places on the moon as

13. However, no liquid water or water vapor has
been found on the moon.
So what are some things that would or
would not exist on the moon?
How about:
Oceans? Puddles? Plants?
Lakes? Rain? Animals?
Rivers? Clouds? Bacteria?

14. The Moon has virtually no atmosphere.
Therefore, there is no weather on the
Moon, no storms, no rain, no wind, no
Atmosphere???
snow, but the temperature can fluxuate
wildly.
The temperature on the Moon ranges from
daytime highs of about 130°C = 265°F to
nighttime lows of about -110°C = -170°F

15. The fact that the Moon has little or no air or
water affects other things on the Moon.
For example, there is no wind or water caused
weathering, erosion or deposition on the
Moon. Things do not erode.
This footprint would look the same today as it
did 30 years ago.

16. The lack of atmosphere also affects sound as
we know it. For sound to travel, there must be
a medium for the waves to travel through.
On Earth that would usually be air or water.
On the Moon, there is no air, so sound
cannot travel above the surface.
When the Apollo astronauts were out on the
Moon's surface, they could only talk to each
other, and to mission control, by using the
radios in their air filled helmets.

17. When the astronaut in the photo hit the
moon’s surface with this shovel, no
sound was made.

18. Another result of no atmosphere on the Moon:
Even during the day time the sky looks black because
the atmosphere is not there to scatter sunlight.

19. What is the surface of the
Moon like?
The surface of the moon has many
landforms on it such as craters, lava
plains, mountains, hills and valleys.

20. On a clear night
looking at the
moon, one can
see that there
Mare are two types of
topography on
its surface—the
dark colored
regions called
the maria and
Highlands
the light-colored
http://sos.noaa.gov
highlands that
/
surround the
Photo of the near side of the Moon maria.

21. The flat, dark colored, smooth areas from Earth
look like “seas”. Early astronomers named
them maria (Mare, singular), which
means seas in Latin because they
thought they were holes filled with
water. Maria
What really happened was that
between 3 and 4 billion years
ago, meteors hit the surface of the
moon making huge depressions.
The basin or crater created by the
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/
collision filled with lava from the Moon’s interior
creating these smooth, flat plains we call maria.

22. The highlands are hilly and heavily cratered
and cover about 80% of the total lunar
surface.
Highlands
The far side of the Moon is made up almost
entirely of highlands with many many craters
and very few of the dark smooth basins
called maria.

23. Both the near and the far side of the
Moon have craters. However, the far
side has many more craters than the
near side.
The vast majority of the moon's craters
were formed by the impact of
meteoroids, asteroids, and comets that
over billions of years bombarded its
surface.

24. Craters
range in size
from a
diameter of
less than
one mile to
over 100
miles across.

25. A crater consists of
a thin elevated ring
forming its
perimeter.
The surface within the ring is below the
surrounding edge and in the center there is
often a peak.

26. Möltke – a small bowl-shaped crater
Sabine and Ritter larger, more flattened craters
Sea of Tranquility
The oldest basins are
more irregularly shaped;
the younger ones a more
circular shape.

27. How did the mountains form on the Moon?
Most are either
1. rims or remains of rims of huge craters
or
2. peaks in the middle of huge craters

28. Here we see a diagram of the crater rim
and the central peak of a huge impact
crater on the Moon.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com

29. Rim of a
huge
crater
Peak in
the
middle
of a
huge
crater

30. The prominent Sculptured Hills were
photographed by astronauts Schmitt and Cerman
on Apollo 17. Although these hills are quite
impressive, the highest mountains on the moon
are 15,000 to 20,000 feet high.

31. Earth has been more heavily impacted by
meteoroids, asteroids and comets than the Moon.
However, presently the Earth has only a few
craters compared to the Moon .
Whereas the Earth’s surface is constantly
changing, the Moon’s surface has changed little
over billions of years.
There are two main reasons for the low number
of craters on Earth.
One is that most meteoroids burn up before
they reach the surface of the Earth.
The other is that the wind and water erode any
craters that have formed so most are erased.

32. Astronaut Harrison Schmitt collecting rocks
from the Moon during the Apollo XVII mission.
Does the
Moon’s
surface have
rocks?
Big ones and
small ones. The
astronauts
brought back
some of the
smaller ones.

33. Here are pictures of two moon rocks they
brought back. The composition of these rocks
is similar to Earth rocks. This makes scientists
think that the Moon was once part of Earth.
The only thing
about these rocks
that changed when
they were brought
to Earth was their
weight-- they
weigh more on
Earth than they did
on the Moon.

34. What about soil? Does the Moon have
soil?
Like Earth, the Moon has a layer of soil but
it is very different than the soil found on
Earth.

35. The lunar landscape is covered by a layer of ground-up, fine
powdery cinder-like pieces of rock. This "lunar soil” contains
no water or organic material. It has been built up over billions
of years by the continuous bombardment of the Moon by
large and small meteors, asteroids or comets not by
weathering and erosion.

36. Astronaut Edwin E.
"Buzz"
Aldrin, Jr., lunar
module pilot of
the first lunar
landing mission, is
beside the U.S.
flag during an
Apollo 11 moon
walk. The
footprints of the
astronauts are
clearly visible in

37. After the earlier period when the maria were
being formed (3.5-4.5 billion years ago), the
surface of the Moon has not changed very
much.
There are some moonquakes which cause
occasional landslides.
The daily heating and cooling of rocks
breaks up the rock but at a very slow rate.
Since that time meteors have hit the Moon but
very few compared the heavy bombardment in
its early history.

38. A brief review

39. Name these
Craters features.
Maria
Name
these
features

40. So how is the Moon like Earth?
And how is it different from Earth?