By Lexi Dalton, Paige Steele, Bradyn Kreps, Kaylee Haynes, Brianna Pool, and Kylie Reifsteck. January 13, Per. 3

 The moon is an oval shaped planet that was created when a rock the size of Mars slammed into Earth, shortly after the solar system began forming about 4.5 billion years ago.  The circumference at the equator is 10,917.0 km.  The diameter is 3,475 km.  The average distance from Earth is 384,400 km.  The length of orbit is 27.3 Earth days.  The surface temperature is -233 to -123 degrees Celsius.

 Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon.  He was only 39 years old.  He made history on July 20,  Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, were part of NASA’s first manned mission to the moon.  The trio were launched into space on July 16,  Serving as the mission’s commander, Armstrong piloted the Lunar Module to the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969, with Buzz Aldrin aboard. Collins remained on the Command Module.

 The length of the day on the moon is 29 Earth days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes.  The Moon is billion years old.  Scientists have lasers to study the moon.  The moon is 1.5 inches, and 3.8 centimeters farther away from the Earth each year.  The Moon also has no atmosphere.

 What is the Lunar Month? A lunar month is the time the moon takes to pass through a complete cycle of its phases and is measured from New Moon to New Moon. A lunar month is about 29.5 days (29 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, and 11.6 seconds).  Why is a Lunar Month (29.5 days) longer than the number of days it takes the Moon to orbit the Earth (27.3)? Whilst the Moon is orbiting the Earth, the Earth is constantly moving because it is orbiting the sun. The Moon therefor travels lightly more than 360 degrees to get from one new moon to the next. Thus the lunar month is longer.

 The effect of gravity is only one fifth (17%) as strong on the surface of the Moon compared to the strength of gravity on the surface of the Earth.  The Moon has many craters. Meteorites made the craters. Meteorites are pieces of space rock that sometimes crash into a planet’s or a moon’s surface. Comets also made some of the Moon’s craters. These chunks of rock and ice orbit the Sun.  From Earth, the Moon seems to change shape. The Sun lights only part of it at one time. From Earth< only the part of the Moon that the Sun lights appears. The part that people can see is called a phase.

 The Moon is the only object in space that humans have walked on and explored.  In china, the dark shadows that are on the moon’s surface are called ‘’the toad in the moon”  Apollo 15 was the first mission to use a lunar rover. The top speed that was ever recorded in this 4-wheeled land vehicle was miles per hour.  The Apollo missions brought back 2196 rock samples weighing 382 kg in total.

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