Good day, dear Take in Mind readers! Please close your eyes and imagine… Summer night. You can’t sleep. You prepare a cup of tea and go out to the balcony. Silence, occasionally disturbed by a distant barking of a dog or a noise of a passing car. You admire the cloudless night sky and a myriad of stars. They are so attractive, but, alas, they are so far away… Then you look at our Moon, so close and far at the same time, so romantic and so beautiful that using the word “satellite” to describe it sounds rude and offensive a bit. It is so dear to us. like a country house. Moreover, we claimed the Moon even legally: the agreement governing the activities of states on the Moon and other celestial bodies (an international treaty establishing a legal basis for their exploration and exploitation) was adopted by Resolution 34/68 of the UN General Assembly and entered into force on July 11, 1984. As of November 10, 2022, the agreement has been signed by twenty-two countries only. The rest, I suppose, didn’t sign it not because of their great modesty.
What do we really know about the Moon? Not so much if we take only information confirmed by official science. We do not know even its age and origin. Well, let’s remind at least a couple of well-known facts that we learned at school:
- The average diameter of the Moon is 3,475 km. It ranks fifth in the list of the largest satellites in the solar system. The mass of the Moon is 81 times less than the mass of the Earth, and the volume is almost 50 times less. The surface area of the Moon (58 million sq. km.) is less than the corresponding area of Asia.
- The Moon always faces the Earth on the same side. Over 40% of the near (or visible) side is occupied by its famous seas (dark, low-lying areas covered with solidified lava). The Moon’s far (or dark) side differs markedly from the near side – it is higher, and most of the most significant impact craters are located on it, including the largest South Pole–Aitken basin (at roughly 2,500 km in diameter and between 6.2 and 8.2 km deep).
- The Moon has huge temperature fluctuations – from -173 ° C to +127 ° C.
And a few lesser-known facts:
- Helium-3 is an extremely valuable, non-radioactive isotope that can be used in “clean” fusion power plants. The Moon is extremely rich in helium-3, which can cover the energy needs of all humankind on Earth for at least 10,000 years. By the way, is it a hint as to why only twenty-two countries have signed the agreement mentioned above?
- There are substantial water reserves on the Moon. Moreover, water is found not only in the form of ice at the poles but also on the surface warmed by the Sun (for details, see Honniball, C.I., et al. Molecular water detected on the sunlit Moon by SOFIA. Nat Astron 5, 121–127 (2021)).
- The Moon moves away from the Earth at about 4 cm per year. That is, in 600 million years (i.e., almost the day after tomorrow!), the apparent size of the Moon will decrease so much that we will not be able to observe total solar eclipses from the Earth.
- The first living creatures to fly around the Moon were two tortoises, fruit fly eggs and beetle larvae, plants, seeds, and microorganisms in the Soviet uncrewed spacecraft, Zond-5 (1968). All of us know about the American astronaut Neil Armstrong and his famous “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Less is known about Soviet projects of the lunar city “Zvezda” (or, unofficially, Barmingrad), which were developed in the 1960-s.
And finally, we would like to give a little friendly advice. If, upon seeing the Moon, you are overcome by an irresistible desire to howl, please do not do that. Your statement that Nature dictates this urge and your argument about howling wolves are not substantiated. At least, scientists have not found any evidence to confirm this hypothesis.
Featured image: a full moon was photographed from the Apollo 11, by NASA
Related Articles: