Today I thought I'd give some interesting facts about our beloved moon.
The moon...
- Spins at a rate of ~10mph
- orbits earth in about 27.3 days
- Is not made of cheese (as apparently 13% of the population still believed in a survey conducted in 1988). It's actually made of heavy metals, mostly iron and silica. The surface is covered in a dusty glass like material called silicon dioxide.
- Has a core which is partially molten.
- Surface consists of dust that smells like burnt gunpowder
- Is tidally locked to Earth which means the same side of the moon is always facing Earth viewers
- Is covered in craters because it has no atmosphere to destroy objects before they crash into the surface
- Is about 1/4 the size of earth and has a surface area of about 9.4 billion acres
- Is the only other astronomical body that humans have set foot on.
- Has small amounts of water ice near its surface
- Causes tides here on Earth
Image Credit: Luc Viatour www.lucnix.be
