Earth’s Satellite CHERALYN TATE/ASTRONOMY POWERPOINT PRESENTATION 2011

The date: July The place: the Moon ; The event: Men set foot on the moon; the first men to walk on the moon used the lunar module to ferry them from the command module, later Buzz Aldrin stood on the moon

STAGE of DEVELOPMENT The 1 st stage in the development of the solar system may have been a vast cloud of gases and dust. As parts of the cloud cooled, they condensed into rock. Some of the larger rocks, pulled other rocks towards them. In time, these growing mases of rock collected to form the moon.

The MOVING MOON The moving Moon, it takes about 27 days to make a complete circle round the earth. As it travels in its orbit, it also spins round like a top. In the language of scientists, it rotates on its axis. One rotation takes 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes…about the same that it takes for the moon to orbit the earth. This results in the moon keeping the same side turned towards us all the time. There are also other movements called liberations, which enable us to see a little more of the moon’s surface.

 Unlike the sun and the stars, the moon has no light of its own. Moonlight is really sunlight reflected from the moon’s surface. The amount of sunlight that the moon reflects towards the earth varies. Sometimes we see a whole side of the moon lit up like a huge silver disc. At other times, we see only a part of the lighted side. The shape that we see then is not a disc, but a crescent. These different shapes are called phases of the moon.

The phases occur because the moon orbits the earth. When the moon is at the side facing us is in shadow. We cannot see the moon at all then. This phase is called NEW MOON. After 2 or 3 days the moon has moved on some distance. Now we see just the thin edge of its lighted side. This is the CRESCENT MOON. The crescent grows until a week after new moon, you see half of the lighted side. This phase is known as the first quarter. This means that the moon has travelled through one-quarter of its orbit.

While the moon circles the earth, the earth is continually traveling round the sun. As the Earth and its moon travel together in their orbits round the sun, the moon sometimes passes directly between the sun and the earth. At other times, the earth becomes between the sun and the moon. This is the cause of eclipses.

The gravitational pull of the moon is only one- sixth that of the earth. A 175lb astronaut and his 125lb backpack weigh only 50 lbs on the moon.

GALILEO THE FAMOUS ITALIAN ASTRONOMER, WAS THE FIRST MAN TO TURN HIS TELESCOPE ON THE MOON. HE CALLED THE FLAT AREAS MARIA, THE LATIN WORD FOR “SEAS” GALILEO DREW THE FIRST ROUGH MAP OF THE LUNAR SURFACE ITALIAN ASTRONOMER  Galileo

Craters are flat, low-lying areas, roughly circular in shape, the largest by mountains, largest is “CLAVIUS” 145 miles across

In one of two ways, volcanic action or scars of collisions between the earth and meteors

Did you know that the Moon features its own seas?

On the moon and in outer space there is no air to scatter the light, in the black skies over the moon and in outer space

Venus and the 37 Moon, Goodnight and Sleep tight…