Transcript The Moon - Spring Branch ISD

The Moon
By: Audrey Luecken
Krissy Denby
Drew Wolod
Dimensions
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The moon’s diameter is 3,475
kilometers or 2,150 miles
It is about ¼ the size of the Earth
It’s density 3.3 times the density
of water
The moons iron core is smaller
than Earths
The moons gravity attraction is
1/6 of Earths attraction
Lunar Surface
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Galileo saw two types of
terrain with his telescope
– Dark Lowlands
– Bright Highlands
The dark parts of the
moon were thought to be
seas and were named
Maria.
This would be disproved
later because the moon
does not have oceans
Lunar Surface
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Tectonic forces aren’t active on the
moon
– Therefore no earthquakes or
volcanoes
There is no atmosphere on the moon
– Different types of erosion occur
 Tiny space particles
(micrometeorites) bombard the
surface and smooth out the
landscape
Lunar Surface
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The moon rocks are usually rounded on top of
they are not exposed to the lunar surface
The moon hasn’t changed in the last 3 billion
years except for a few craters created by large
meteorites.
Craters
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The most obvious features on the lunar
surface
– There are even craters within craters
The larger ones are about 250 kilometers
(150 miles) in diameter
– Roughly the width of India
Most craters were created by the impact of
rapidly moving debris
Craters
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Upon impact, the high
speed meteoroid
compresses the material
it strikes, then almost
instantaneously the
compressed rock
rebounds, ejecting
material from the crater
– Imagine a rock being
dropped in the water
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Most ejected
material lands near
the crater, building a
rim around it
The heat that is
generated by impact
can sometimes melt
the impacted rock
– Astronauts have
brought back glass
beads produced in
this manner
Highlands
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Make up most of the
lunar surface
The entire “back” of the
moon is made up of
highlands
Within highland regions
are mountain ranges
– The highest lunar
peaks reach
elevations
approaching 8
kilometers (only 1
kilometer shorter than
Mount Everest)
Maria
 Maria
is the name given to the areas
that were impacted by meteoroids
– They look like “seas” because they are
darker
 Lava
also flows out in basaltic craters
Regolith
 Regolith
is unconsolidated debris
that is piled up over billions of years
 It
is composed of igneous rock,
breccia, glass beads, and lunar dust
Lunar History
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The moon is the nearest planetary
neighbor to the Earth
Some scientists support the hypothesis
that a giant asteroid collided with Earth
to produce the moon
Scientists learned the history of the moon
by observing and measuring its craters
Lunar History
 Scientists
concluded that the moon
evolved in three phases:
– The Original Crust (highlands)
– Maria Basins
– Rayed Craters
Lunar History
Early:
 It was continually impacted and swept
up debris
 Enough impact melted the moons outer
shell therefore no atmosphere
Later:
 The moon formed Maria Basins(between
3.2 and 3.8 billion years)
 The final prominent feature that was
created were rayed craters
Moon Rocks
Moon Facts
 Who
discovered: The moon is too
much of a prominent feature in the
night sky that no one could of said to
have discovered
 The surface area of the moon is
14,658,000 square miles or 9.4
billion acres
 Only 59% of the moon's surface is
visible from earth
Moon Facts
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The moon rotates at 10 miles per hour
compared to the earth's rotation of 1000
miles per hour
When a month has two full moons, the
second full moon is called a blue moon
The moon has no global magnetic field.
Blue
Moon!
Moon Facts
It takes the moon
27 days to orbit
the Earth
 The moons orbit is
counterclockwise
 The moon orbits
Earth at an
average speed of
2,288 miles per
hour
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The moon is not a
light source. Its
light is reflected off
the sun
 The moon causes
many of the
oceans tides
because of gravity
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Moon Facts
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A lunar halo is caused by light refracted
through ice crystals in cirrus clouds. (ring
around the moon)
The Moon is NOT made of
cheese
Works cited
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Picture:
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Climate, Weather And. Space News From SpaceDaily.Com. Web. 01 Apr. 2011.
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2011.
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COSMOS Magazine | The Science of Everything. Web. 01 Apr. 2011.
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Catching the Light: Astrophotography by Jerry Lodriguss.Web. 01 Apr. 2011.
<http://www.astropix.com/>.
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Information
Moon Information Resource And Guide. Web. 01 Apr. 2011. <http://www.moonconnection.com/>.