THE MOON
Temperature
The moon is
quite a different place to earth. To begin with it can get very hot and cold.
The temperature on the Moon goes from daytime highs of about 130°C = 265°F
(more than enough to boil water!) to night time lows of about -110°C = -170°F (Colder than anywhere on
earth!! Three times as cold as the North Pole in winter!). This also means that
any plants or trees cannot grow
Here is a
picture of the surface of the moon:
Water
It never rains
on the moon and there is no water. If there was any water on the moon’s surface
it would either boil away or be frozen solid. Recent visits to the moon tell us
that there might be some frozen ice at the poles but nobody is sure yet. Luckily
for us the earth is full of water!! In fact more than half of the earth is
covered in water!!
Atmosphere
The moon has no
atmosphere (air) so you wouldn’t be able to breathe and so plants and trees
cannot grow. Because there is no atmosphere asteroids (rocks) from space can easily
smash right into the surface of the moon and make great big craters. These
craters can be many hundreds of kilometers across.
If there was a
building on the moon it could be hit by one of these asteroids which means that it could be quite a dangerous place to be! It is
also strange to think that you would not hear any noise or explosion if an
asteroid hit the surface close to you because there is no air for sound waves
to travel. The moon is silent!!
Here is a
picture of some craters on the moon:
We are lucky to
have an atmosphere on earth because it makes big rocks from space burn up
before reaching the ground. A shooting star is a rock
burning up as it shoots toward the earth. Have you ever seen one? Also, because there is no atmosphere on the
moon the sky would always appear dark, even during the daytime!
This picture
shows what the black sky looks like. Can you see the beautiful blue sky of the
earth in the background?
Gravity
On earth there
is an invisible force called GRAVITY. This force pulls everything toward the
center of the earth and stops us all from flying off. On the moon GRAVITY is
very weak and so we are much lighter and would need extra weight to keep us
from floating away.
Interesting Moon Facts
·
Did you know that the same side of the moon always faces the Earth.
·
Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to
walk on the moon, on
·
The
moon is about 238,900 miles (384,000 km) from Earth.
The moon travels around the Earth in about one month (28 days actually).
·
The
moon's diameter is 2,140 miles (3,476 km)
·
The
biggest intact lunar crater is Clavius which is 100
miles (160 km) across
·
It
has been found that moon rocks are about 4.3 billion years old.
