The lunar month is the days it takes to go from one new moon to the next. During the The diagram below on the right is one you typically see in books. It rises almost exactly as the Sun sets and sets just as the Sun rises the next day.
Table of contents
- Orbit and Phases of the Moon
- High School Earth Science/The Sun and the Earth-Moon System
- Motion of the Moon
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Vivamus ante augue, commodo vel egestas sed, pharetra nec dui. Quisque sed tellus felis. Donec ipsum mauris, sagittis eu accumsan in, aliquam non ipsum. Vestibulum tempor nunc nec felis scelerisque eget elementum erat dignissim. Ut vel ipsum mollis orci venenatis luctus. Aenean vehicula quam vel quam porttitor ac iaculis elit pulvinar.
Proin consequat, ipsum eu venenatis semper, justo turpis posuere tortor, ac placerat metus nisl et lectus. Nulla cursus dui id nunc ullamcorper sed semper nisl lobortis. Phasellus arcu ante, imperdiet in ornare sed, laoreet eu massa. Introduction The moon incites children's curiosity from a very young age. Learning Objectives After completing this lesson plan, students will be able to: Discuss basic facts about the moon Recognize moon phases in pictures and when viewing the moon Understand the origin of moon craters Create a model of a cratered moon Preparation Print out all sheets that need to be colored or completed on paper Make sure you have reliable Internet access Gather materials for activities Obtain books Lesson 1: Introduce the moon Read at least three books about the moon.
Adler Have the child order the books within the following categories by laying them out on the floor or on a table in order: The review should include the following: Would you like to go to the moon? Why or why not? If you went to the moon, who would you take with you? What do you think it would be like if we had two moons? How could we tell them apart? The moon has many names; for instance, the Romans called it Luna. The moon does not make its own light. It can only reflect light. We see the light reflected off of the moon from the sun.
The moon has no atmosphere, so it doesn't have weather. There is no wind on the moon. Because of this, the footprints on the moon left by the astronauts will stay for millions of years. The moon is about 4. The moon is orbiting around the earth at the speed of 2, miles 3, kilometers per hour.
The surface of the moon isn't flat. It has lots of craters. Today, many of these claims are thought to be illusory, resulting from observation under different lighting conditions, poor astronomical seeing , or inadequate drawings.
- The Moon - Mensa for Kids.
- Lesson 1: Introduce the moon.
- Alone (Fearless).
However, outgassing does occasionally occur and could be responsible for a minor percentage of the reported lunar transient phenomena. The Moon's appearance, like the Sun's, can be affected by Earth's atmosphere. The gravitational attraction that masses have for one another decreases inversely with the square of the distance of those masses from each other.
As a result, the slightly greater attraction that the Moon has for the side of Earth closest to the Moon, as compared to the part of the Earth opposite the Moon, results in tidal forces. Tidal forces affect both the Earth's crust and oceans. The most obvious effect of tidal forces is to cause two bulges in the Earth's oceans, one on the side facing the Moon and the other on the side opposite. This results in elevated sea levels called ocean tides.
As a result, there are two high tides, and two low tides in about 24 hours. While gravitation causes acceleration and movement of the Earth's fluid oceans, gravitational coupling between the Moon and Earth's solid body is mostly elastic and plastic. The result is a further tidal effect of the Moon on the Earth that causes a bulge of the solid portion of the Earth nearest the Moon that acts as a torque in opposition to the Earth's rotation. This "drains" angular momentum and rotational kinetic energy from Earth's spin, slowing the Earth's rotation.
Thus the distance between Earth and Moon is increasing , and the Earth's spin is slowing in reaction. Left to run its course, this tidal drag would continue until the spin of Earth and the orbital period of the Moon matched, creating mutual tidal locking between the two. As a result, the Moon would be suspended in the sky over one meridian, as is already currently the case with Pluto and its moon Charon. However, the Sun will become a red giant engulfing the Earth-Moon system long before this occurrence. Moonquakes are much less common and weaker than are earthquakes, although moonquakes can last for up to an hour—significantly longer than terrestrial quakes—because of the absence of water to damp out the seismic vibrations.
The existence of moonquakes was an unexpected discovery from seismometers placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts from through Eclipses only occur when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are all in a straight line termed " syzygy ". Solar eclipses occur at new moon , when the Moon is between the Sun and Earth. In contrast, lunar eclipses occur at full moon , when Earth is between the Sun and Moon. The apparent size of the Moon is roughly the same as that of the Sun, with both being viewed at close to one-half a degree wide.
The Sun is much larger than the Moon but it is the vastly greater distance that gives it the same apparent size as the much closer and much smaller Moon from the perspective of Earth. The variations in apparent size, due to the non-circular orbits, are nearly the same as well, though occurring in different cycles. This makes possible both total with the Moon appearing larger than the Sun and annular with the Moon appearing smaller than the Sun solar eclipses. Because the distance between the Moon and Earth is very slowly increasing over time, [] the angular diameter of the Moon is decreasing.
Also, as it evolves toward becoming a red giant , the size of the Sun, and its apparent diameter in the sky, are slowly increasing. Likewise, hundreds of millions of years in the future, the Moon will no longer cover the Sun completely, and total solar eclipses will not occur.
Orbit and Phases of the Moon
Because the Moon's orbit around Earth is inclined by about 5. For an eclipse to occur, the Moon must be near the intersection of the two orbital planes. Because the Moon is continuously blocking our view of a half-degree-wide circular area of the sky, [m] [] the related phenomenon of occultation occurs when a bright star or planet passes behind the Moon and is occulted: In this way, a solar eclipse is an occultation of the Sun.
Because the Moon is comparatively close to Earth, occultations of individual stars are not visible everywhere on the planet, nor at the same time. Because of the precession of the lunar orbit, each year different stars are occulted.
High School Earth Science/The Sun and the Earth-Moon System
Understanding of the Moon's cycles was an early development of astronomy: The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras d. During the Middle Ages , before the invention of the telescope, the Moon was increasingly recognised as a sphere, though many believed that it was "perfectly smooth". In , Galileo Galilei drew one of the first telescopic drawings of the Moon in his book Sidereus Nuncius and noted that it was not smooth but had mountains and craters.
Telescopic mapping of the Moon followed: Spacecraft from the Soviet Union's Luna program were the first to accomplish a number of goals: The first spacecraft to perform a successful lunar soft landing was Luna 9 and the first unmanned vehicle to orbit the Moon was Luna 10 , both in During the late s at the height of the Cold War , the United States Army conducted a classified feasibility study that proposed the construction of a manned military outpost on the Moon called Project Horizon with the potential to conduct a wide range of missions from scientific research to nuclear Earth bombardment.
The study included the possibility of conducting a lunar-based nuclear test. Following President John F. Kennedy 's commitment to a manned moon landing before the end of the decade, the United States, under NASA leadership, launched a series of unmanned probes to develop an understanding of the lunar surface in preparation for manned missions: The manned Apollo program was developed in parallel; after a series of unmanned and manned tests of the Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit, and spurred on by a potential Soviet lunar flight , in Apollo 8 made the first manned mission to lunar orbit.
The subsequent landing of the first humans on the Moon in is seen by many as the culmination of the Space Race. Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon as the commander of the American mission Apollo 11 by first setting foot on the Moon at Scientific instrument packages were installed on the lunar surface during all the Apollo landings. Long-lived instrument stations , including heat flow probes, seismometers , and magnetometers , were installed at the Apollo 12 , 14 , 15 , 16 , and 17 landing sites.
Direct transmission of data to Earth concluded in late because of budgetary considerations, [] [] but as the stations' lunar laser ranging corner-cube retroreflector arrays are passive instruments, they are still being used. Ranging to the stations is routinely performed from Earth-based stations with an accuracy of a few centimetres, and data from this experiment are being used to place constraints on the size of the lunar core. After the first Moon race there were years of near quietude but starting in the s, many more countries have become involved in direct exploration of the Moon.
In , Japan became the third country to place a spacecraft into lunar orbit with its Hiten spacecraft. The spacecraft released a smaller probe, Hagoromo , in lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, preventing further scientific use of the mission. This mission obtained the first near-global topographic map of the Moon, and the first global multispectral images of the lunar surface.
India, Japan, China, the United States, and the European Space Agency each sent lunar orbiters, and especially ISRO 's Chandrayaan-1 has contributed to confirming the discovery of lunar water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the poles and bound into the lunar regolith. The post-Apollo era has also seen two rover missions: The Moon remains, under the Outer Space Treaty , free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes. The European spacecraft SMART-1 , the second ion-propelled spacecraft, was in lunar orbit from 15 November until its lunar impact on 3 September , and made the first detailed survey of chemical elements on the lunar surface.
The ambitious Chinese Lunar Exploration Program began with Chang'e 1 , which successfully orbited the Moon from 5 November until its controlled lunar impact on 1 March Chang'e 2 , beginning in October , reached the Moon more quickly, mapped the Moon at a higher resolution over an eight-month period, then left lunar orbit for an extended stay at the Earth—Sun L2 Lagrangian point , before finally performing a flyby of asteroid Toutatis on 13 December , and then heading off into deep space.
Motion of the Moon
On 14 December , Chang'e 3 landed a lunar lander onto the Moon's surface, which in turn deployed a lunar rover , named Yutu Chinese: This was the first lunar soft landing since Luna 24 in , and the first lunar rover mission since Lunokhod 2 in China intends to launch another rover mission Chang'e 4 before , followed by a sample return mission Chang'e 5 soon after. Between 4 October and 10 June , the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency 's Kaguya Selene mission, a lunar orbiter fitted with a high-definition video camera, and two small radio-transmitter satellites, obtained lunar geophysics data and took the first high-definition movies from beyond Earth orbit.
NASA released photos of the crater on 25 December Upcoming lunar missions include Russia's Luna-Glob: NASA began to plan to resume manned missions following the call by U. Bush on 14 January for a manned mission to the Moon by and the construction of a lunar base by On 28 February , SpaceX , Vodafone , Nokia and Audi announced a collaboration to install a 4G wireless communication network on the Moon, with the aim of streaming live footage on the surface to Earth.
The decision is regarded as a precedent helping to define regulatory standards for deep-space commercial activity in the future, as thus far companies' operation had been restricted to being on or around Earth. For many years, the Moon has been recognized as an excellent site for telescopes. A 5,year-old rock carving at Knowth , Ireland, may represent the Moon, which would be the earliest depiction discovered.
In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Moon was personified as a deity or other supernatural phenomenon, and astrological views of the Moon continue to be propagated today. It came to represent the goddess Artemis or Hecate , and via the patronage of Hecate came to be used as a symbol of Byzantium. An iconographic tradition of representing Sun and Moon with faces developed in the late medieval period.
The splitting of the moon Arabic: The Moon's regular phases make it a very convenient timepiece, and the periods of its waxing and waning form the basis of many of the oldest calendars. Tally sticks , notched bones dating as far back as 20—30, years ago, are believed by some to mark the phases of the Moon. The 7th-century Islamic calendar is an exceptional example of a purely lunar calendar.
Months are traditionally determined by the visual sighting of the hilal, or earliest crescent moon, over the horizon. The Moon has long been associated with insanity and irrationality; the words lunacy and lunatic popular shortening loony are derived from the Latin name for the Moon, Luna. Philosophers Aristotle and Pliny the Elder argued that the full moon induced insanity in susceptible individuals, believing that the brain, which is mostly water, must be affected by the Moon and its power over the tides, but the Moon's gravity is too slight to affect any single person.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about Earth's natural satellite. For moons in general, see natural satellite. For other uses, see Moon disambiguation. Regressing by one revolution in Moment of inertia factor. List of lunar deities. Near side of the Moon. Far side of the Moon. Origin of the Moon and Giant-impact hypothesis. Oceanus Procellarum "Ocean of Storms".
Ancient rift valleys — context. Ancient rift valleys — closeup artist's concept. Internal structure of the Moon. Geology of the Moon and Moon rocks. List of craters on the Moon. Gravity of the Moon. Magnetic field of the Moon.
Atmosphere of the Moon. Orbit of the Moon and Lunar theory. Lunar observation , Lunar phase , Moonlight , and Earthlight astronomy. Tidal force , Tidal acceleration , Tide , and Theory of tides. Solar eclipse , Lunar eclipse , and Eclipse cycle. Exploration of the Moon: Early history , Selenography , and Lunar theory. Robotic exploration of the Moon , List of proposed missions to the Moon , Colonization of the Moon , and List of artificial objects on the Moon. Luna program and Lunokhod programme.
Luna 2 , the first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon left and Soviet Moon rover Lunokhod 1. Apollo program and Moon landing. Earthrise Apollo 8 , Moon rock Apollo 17 , Copernicus 's central peaks as observed by the LRO , The Ina formation, Lunar calendar , Lunisolar calendar , Metonic cycle , Blue moon , and Movable feast.
Solar System portal Moon portal Astronomy portal.
For more information, see Other moons of Earth. Larger planets tend to have more satellites, both large and small, than smaller planets. The moon Charon is larger relative to its primary Pluto , but Pluto is now considered to be a dwarf planet. At present, the diameter of the Sun is increasing at a rate of about five percent per billion years.
This is very similar to the rate at which the apparent angular diameter of the Moon is decreasing as it recedes from Earth. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry. Archived from the original on 23 March Retrieved 31 December Journal of Geophysical Research. Planetary and Space Science. Archived from the original on 6 October Archived from the original on 16 December Retrieved 29 March Archived from the original on 27 May The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology.
Retrieved 23 March When the Bad Bleeds: Archived from the original on 4 September The Book of the Moon. Yet another exotic theory of lunar origin". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Jeffrey 31 December Planetary Science Research Discoveries.
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Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. Archived from the original on 10 June Retrieved 7 April Archived from the original on 8 October Archived from the original on 1 January Archived from the original on 18 April Retrieved 7 May Archived from the original on 9 April Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Archived from the original on 27 September Archived from the original on 20 April Retrieved 5 July Retrieved 3 October Archived from the original on 15 March Archived PDF from the original on 15 October The Planet, Satellites, and Magnetosphere. Gravitational physics and lunar interior and geodesy". Advances in Space Research. Earlier we discussed Earth's rotation and revolution. The Earth rotates once on its axis about every 24 hours. If you were to look at Earth from the North Pole, it would be spinning counterclockwise. As the Earth rotates, observers on Earth see the Sun moving across the sky from east to west with the beginning of each new day.
We often say that the Sun is "rising" or "setting", but actually it is the Earth's rotation that gives us the perception of the Sun rising up or setting over the horizon. When we look at the Moon or the stars at night, they also seem to rise in the east and set in the west. Earth's rotation is also responsible for this. As Earth turns, the Moon and stars change position in our sky. Another effect of Earth's rotation is that we have a cycle of daylight and darkness approximately every 24 hours.
This is called a day. As Earth rotates, the side of Earth facing the Sun experiences daylight, and the opposite side facing away from the Sun experiences darkness or night time. Since the Earth completes one rotation in about 24 hours, this is the time it takes to complete one day-night cycle.
As the Earth rotates, different places on Earth experience sunset and sunrise at a different time. As you move towards the poles, summer and winter days have different amounts of daylight hours in a day. For example, in the Northern hemisphere, we begin summer on June At this point, the Earth's North Pole is pointed directly toward the Sun. Therefore, areas north of the equator experience longer days and shorter nights because the northern half of the Earth is pointed toward the Sun. Since the southern half of the Earth is pointed away from the Sun at that point, they have the opposite effect—longer nights and shorter days.
For people in the Northern hemisphere, winter begins on December At this point, it is Earth's South Pole that is tilted toward the Sun, and so there are shorter days and longer nights for those who are north of the equator. It is a common misconception that summer is warm and winter is cold because the Sun is closer to Earth in the summer and farther away from it during the winter. Remember that seasons are caused by the This results in one part of the Earth being more directly exposed to rays from the Sun than the other part.
The part tilted away from the Sun experiences a cool season, while the part tilted toward the Sun experiences a warm season. Seasons change as the Earth continues its revolution, causing the hemisphere tilted away from or towards the Sun to change accordingly. When it is winter in the Northern hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern hemisphere, and vice versa. A solar eclipse occurs when the new moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun Figure This casts a shadow on the Earth and blocks our view of the Sun.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's shadow completely blocks the Sun Figure When only a portion of the Sun is out of view, it is called a partial solar eclipse. Solar eclipses are rare events that usually only last a few minutes. That is because the Moon's shadow only covers a very small area on Earth and Earth is turning very rapidly.
As the Sun is covered by the moon's shadow, it will actually get cooler outside. Birds may begin to sing, and stars will become visible in the sky. During a solar eclipse, the corona and solar prominences can be seen.