Facts and Figures
There's a vast amount of data on the moon. Facts and Figures will help you understand the moon was formed, what has happened to it over the last five billion years since its creation and what might happen to it in the future.
Some Basic Moon Facts |
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Distance from Earth |
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225,745 miles |
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Distance from Earth (Light Years) |
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1.5 light seconds |
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Length of Lunar Day |
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27.3 earth days |
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Radius |
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1080 miles |
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Diameter |
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2,160 miles |
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Weight |
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81 quintillion tons |
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Surface Temp. (Day) |
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134°C |
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Surface Temp. (Night) |
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-154°C |
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Gravity on surface |
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0.1667g (1/6 of earth's) |
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Orbital Speed |
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22,887 mph |
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Driving time by car @ 70 mph |
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135 days |
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Flying time by rocket |
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60 - 70 hours |
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Walking time @ 3 mph |
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8.6 years |
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No. of men who have
walked on the moon |
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12 |
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Age of oldest collected rock |
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4+ billion years |
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Weight of rocks collected
by Apollo missions |
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842 pounds |
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Widest Crater |
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140 miles in diameter |
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Deepest Craters |
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15,000+ feet |
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Highest Mountains |
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16,000+ feet |
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Albedo (the extent to which
an object can reflect light) |
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0.12 |
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Today the moon is a cold dark place but it has not always been like that. Five billion years ago the moon was formed when an object about the size of Mars collided with the Earth generating colossal heat and shattering the surface of both planets. The resulting debris spun off into Earth orbit and eventually fused to form the moon. For hundreds of millions of years the moon's surface was molten. Slowly it cooled and for two billion years solar debris bombarded its surface. Objects, sometimes as big as New York, slammed into the moon's surface at speeds of up to 45,000 mph, rocks vaporised and the surface temperature soared to over 10,000 degrees centigrade, hotter than the sun. The cratered and scarred face is evidence of its violent early life.
The Book of the Moon details the theories of the moon's creation and describes its craters and mountains, its gravity and atmosphere, the lunar seas and what happens deep within the moon's crust. |
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| The Moon as seen from Earth |
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The book uses diagrams and charts to explain the moon's relationship with the Earth, how it affects the tides, why its shape changes in the night sky and how we might exploit the moon's mineral resources.
The Book also describes some of the stranger things about the moon. For example, the moon is moving away from the earth and is causing the earth's rotation to slow down. One day in the far future the moon and the Earth will have ceased to rotate relative to each other, the moon will be much further away and an earth day will be a month long. Another oddity is that one NASA scientist has argued that the moon is hollow. Carl Sagan stated in his 'Intelligent Life in the Universe' that "a natural satellite cannot be hollow". Is the moon therefore an extra terrestrial craft put in place billions of years ago by intelligent beings?
Using words, charts and pictures the chapter provides a fascinating insight into what we know, think and hope about the moon. |
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