Moon is our nearest neighbour world. It is the most beautiful thing in the night sky. Moon is the only place visited by humans beyond Earth. There is a lot to know and understand about our neighbour world. Let's Explore the 25 most interesting facts about our moon.
1. In 1968, Apollo 8 became the first successful manned mission to reach moon, orbit it, and return to Earth.
2. In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the surface of the moon.
3. Apollo 8 Astronauts were the first humans to take images of Earth from the moon.
4. A total of 24 people have visited the moon and 12 of them, walked on the moon's surface.
5. Eugene Merle Shoemaker is the only person whose ashes are buried on the moon.
6. There are quakes on the moon too (Moonquakes). They are so weak that even if you stood directly over the site of the quake, you won't feel the vibration.
7. There is a large temperature variation on the moon between day and night. The temperature during the day can reach 400 K and during the night it can drop to 140 K.
8. The brightness of the 95-percent visible moon in the sky is half as the brightness of the full moon (100-percent visible).
9. The size of the Sun is about 400 times larger than the size of the moon and the distance of the sun from Earth is about 400 times greater than the distance of the moon from Earth. That's why, both the Sun and the moon appear to be the same size in the sky from Earth.
10. From Moon, Earth also goes through phases from New Earth to Full Earth and back to New Earth.
11. The first image of the surface of the moon was captured by the Soviet Luna 9 lander.
12. When observed from the surface of Earth, The full moon always rises at sunset, the New moon always rises at sunrise, the first quarter rises at noon and the last quarter rises at midnight.
13. Moon doesn't have any atmosphere of its own.
14. Due to lack of Atmosphere, The size of craters on the moon ranges from microscopic to as large as a city. The largest crater on the moon is 290 km in diameter.
15. The moon is moving away from Earth, about 4 cm per year.
16. The rise and fall of ocean levels (Tides) are caused by the gravity of the moon.
17. We always see the same side of the moon from here on Earth because of the moon's synchronous rotation.
18. More than 100 spacecraft have been sent to the moon from more than half a dozen nations.
19. A total of 382 kg of moon rocks are brought back to Earth by Apollo Astronauts. Scientists are still studying them.
20. There is water on the moon. Recently NASA confirmed the presence of water on the moon's sunlit surface for the first time.
21. When the moon passes between Sun and Earth then we call it Solar Eclipse. When the Earth passes between the moon and the Sun then we call it Lunar Eclipse.
22. We don't see Lunar Eclipse or Solar Eclipse on every Full moon and New moon because the orbit of the moon is tilted by 5 degrees.
23. In 1959, The Luna 1 spacecraft became the first man-made object to reach Lunar surface.
24. Light from the moon takes about 1.2 seconds to reach Earth.
25. In 2024, NASA will send the first woman and the next man to the surface of the moon.