On a quiet summer evening in 1969, the world held its breath as a grainy black-and-white broadcast carried the whispers of history. Millions watched as Neil Armstrong descended a ladder onto the Moon’s surface, his words echoing across the Earth: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The desolate lunar landscape shimmered under the weightless dance of astronauts planting the American flag—a symbol of boundless human ambition. At that moment, the Moon wasn’t just a celestial body but a testament to the power of dreams, ingenuity, and the unyielding desire to explore the unknown.
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered about the glowing ball of light we call the Moon? It’s more than just something pretty to look at—it’s our closest neighbour in space and a place full of amazing mysteries waiting to be explored. From its craters and mountains to the way it lights up the night, the Moon has fascinated humans for thousands of years.
In this article, we’ll uncover fun facts about the Moon, explore its role in space adventures, and learn why it’s so important to life here on Earth. So, let’s blast off and discover the wonders of the Moon together!
A satellite is an object that orbits around a larger object in space by balancing its speed with the pull of gravity from the larger object. There are two types: natural satellites and man-made satellites. Natural satellites are found throughout the solar system, orbiting planets, and we’ll call them moons. Man-made satellites, on the other hand, are machines humans send into space to help with tasks like GPS navigation, weather monitoring, TV signals, and space exploration. Those will keep the name “satellite.”
Not all planets in the solar system have moons. For example, Mercury and Venus have no moons. This is likely because they are too close to the Sun, whose strong gravitational pull would make it difficult for these planets to capture or retain moons.
On the other hand, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune collectively have over 275 confirmed moons, ranging from tiny, irregularly shaped ones to massive moons like Ganymede (the largest moon in the solar system). Pluto, the dwarf planet, also has five known moons, with Charon being the largest.
Our Earth has one moon, the Moon, which is large compared to the planet and plays an important role in our tides and stability. Let’s learn some interesting facts about this bright silver neighbour.
The Moon is believed to have formed about 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after Earth itself was created. The most widely accepted theory is the Giant Impact Hypothesis. Here’s how it likely happened:
This theory explains why the Moon’s composition is similar to Earth’s outer layers and why it has less iron, as most of Earth’s core stayed intact during the impact. Over billions of years, the Moon cooled and developed the surface we see today, with its craters, plains, and mountains.
The Moon has an extremely thin and weak atmosphere, called an exosphere, which is almost nonexistent compared to Earth’s atmosphere. It’s so thin that it cannot support weather, clouds, or breathable air.
The Moon’s exosphere is made up of tiny amounts of gases like helium, neon, hydrogen, and argon, mostly originating from the solar wind or released from the Moon’s surface by impacts from micrometeorites.
This lack of a substantial atmosphere means there’s no air to scatter sunlight, so the sky on the Moon always appears black, even during the day. Temperatures vary dramatically, from scorching hot in sunlight to freezing cold in the shadows. There’s also no protection from meteoroids or harmful radiation from the Sun.
Most objects in the sky spin around their axes. While they do that, different parts face the Sun, creating day and night cycles. The time taken for one full spin equals one day on that object. We know that one day on Earth lasts 24 hours.
As it turns out, the Moon is so slow. So, it takes a total of 29.5 Earth days to make one full rotation around its axis. This means that one lunar day equals almost a month on Earth. If you were standing on the Moon, daytime (when the Sun is shining) would then last about two weeks, and nighttime (when it’s dark) would also last about two weeks.
When it comes size, the Moon is much smaller than the Earth. Its diameter is 3,475 km and that is about one-quarter of that of Earth. It has a surface area of about 38 million square km, which is smaller than the surface area of Asia (44.5 million square km). This is a good comparison to highlight the Moon’s relative size.
Putting Earth aside, the Moon is bigger than other moons in the solar system. For instance, it’s larger than Phobos and Deimos, Mars’ moons. It also exceeds in size Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, Mimas and Enceladus of Saturn, and Triton of Neptune.
When compared with the sizes of all moons of all planets in the solar system, our Moon ranks fifth.
Gravity is what pulls things down, like when you jump and come back to the ground. Weight is how hard gravity pulls on you. The larger the object, the stronger the gravity force it pulls it with and; therefore, the heavier this object weighs and the faster it reaches the ground.
Now, the Moon has a weaker gravitational pull because it’s smaller than the Earth.
In fact, the Moon’s gravity is about one-sixth that of Earth’s and so everything on the Moon feels much lighter than on Earth. For example, if someone weighed 60 kg on Earth, they would weigh only about 10 kg on the Moon and if they jumped, they would be able to leap much higher and for longer distances than on Earth. They would also fall more slowly because gravity pulls them down with less force.
This weak gravity of the Moon is also the reason why it can’t hold onto an atmosphere like Earth does. So it has no wind, no weather, and no breathable air.
Tides are the rise and fall of ocean water levels. High tide is when the water level is at its highest point. When the water level is at its lowest point, then the tide is low. Interestingly, this phenomenon is caused by our silver neighbour, the Moon, through its gravitational pull.
On the side of Earth facing the Moon, the Moon’s gravity pulls the water toward it, creating a bulge. This bulge is what we call a high tide. At the same time, on the opposite side of the Earth, another high tide happens. This is because the Moon’s gravity pulls the Earth itself slightly away from the water on that far side, leaving the water to “bulge out” and, thus, another high tide occurs.
In the areas between these two high tides, less water is present because it’s being pulled toward the high tide bulges. These areas experience low tide. As the Earth rotates and the Moon orbits, the position of the tides changes. Most coastal areas experience two high tides and two low tides each day. Tides are important for marine life, shipping, and coastal ecosystems.
That being said, the Sun also influences tides; however, the Moon has a stronger effect because it’s closer to Earth.
A long time ago, the Moon spun much faster, showing all its sides to Earth as it rotated. But Earth and the Moon are like cosmic dance partners, and Earth’s strong gravitational pull began tugging on the Moon, slowing its spin. Over billions of years, something magical happened: the Moon’s rotation and orbit synchronised perfectly.
This phenomenon, called synchronous rotation or tidal locking, means the Moon takes the same amount of time to rotate once on its axis as it does to orbit Earth.
Now, as the Moon takes its journey around Earth, it keeps one side facing us all the time—like a friend who never turns their back. This side, the near side, is what we see when we gaze up at the night sky. The other side, often called the far side, stays hidden, like a mysterious secret, even though it also gets sunlight.
Despite showing us only one side, we were able to see the Moon’s far, dark and mysterious side in 1959.
In the late 1950s, what has been known as the Space Race began between the United States and the Soviet Union. It all kicked off in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the first ever artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. This surprised the world and urged the U.S. to catch up. In response, the U.S. government poured resources into space exploration, leading to the creation of NASA in 1958.
The two countries continued to compete, each achieving a new milestone as time went by. In 1959, the Soviet Union launched the spacecraft Luna 3, which succeeded in taking the first photographs of the far side of the Moon.
However, the first humans to actually see the far side up close were the astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission which NASA launched in 1968. As they orbited the Moon, they had a chance to observe the far side as they passed behind the Moon. Although they didn’t land there, their mission gave us a unique view and helped scientists understand more about this unexplored region.
Later, in 2019, China’s Chang’e-4 mission became the first to successfully land on the far side of the Moon, giving us even more information about this hidden world.
In the midst of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, precisely in 1961, American President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to send an astronaut to the Moon before the end of the decade. This bold goal led to the creation of NASA’s Apollo programme.
After several Apollo missions focused on testing spacecraft and technology, the historic moment came on 20 July 1969, with Apollo 11. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were selected for the mission. Armstrong and Aldrin travelled to the Moon aboard the lunar module Eagle, while Collins remained in orbit around the Moon in the command module Columbia.
As the lunar module landed on the surface of the Moon, Armstrong became the first human to step onto the Moon, famously declaring, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Aldrin joined him shortly after, and the two spent about two hours exploring, collecting samples, and planting the American flag. Meanwhile, Collins continued orbiting above, waiting for their return.
After Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history as the first humans to walk on the Moon during Apollo 11 in July 1969, five other Apollo missions successfully landed on the lunar surface, and 10 more astronauts followed in their footsteps.
Only four months after Apollo 11 arrived home, in November 1969, NASA launched Apollo 12, which also landed successfully on the Moon. Charles “Pete” Conrad and Alan L. Bean, the astronauts of this mission, became the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon. They landed near the Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had landed on the Moon two years earlier. Conrad and Bean spent over seven hours exploring the surface, collecting samples, and performing experiments.
In 1971, NASA launched two other Apollo missions, 14 and 15, and four other astronauts walked on the Moon. One of them was Alan B. Shepard, who famously hit two golf balls on the lunar surface.
The last two Apollo missions were 16 and 17, launched in 1972, and they carried the last four humans to ever walk on the Moon. Since then, NASA hasn’t sent any other humans to the Moon due to multiple reasons including cost, risk, shift in priorities and the lack of public interest.
Since this time, many other countries, including China, India, and Japan, have attempted exploring the Moon with robotic missions and may even have plans to send humans in the future. However, only the U.S. has successfully carried out manned missions to the lunar surface through its Apollo programme.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about the Moon as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic the Moon is, you can move on to learn about our Solar System planets like: Solar System, Space, Milky Way, Asteroids and Black Holes.
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