Unit 4 Earth-Sun-Moon Reading: Part 1 Moon Lunar Maria (the lowlands) and the Lunar Highlands

Directions: Answer the following questions using the readings provided. 7. What does “Maria” mean and what does it represent on the Moon?
Earth and Moon Compared

1. What features dominate the surface of the Earth? The Moon?

8. What are the ages of the rocks found in the Maria and how do they
compare to other areas of the Moon’s crust?

2. Why does the moon have more craters than the Earth?

9. What are the highlands and how common are they across the Moon’s
surface?
3. What surface activities occur on the Earth that help to “Heal” surface
craters over periods of millions of years?

History of the Lunar Surface

10. When and how did the Moon form? What is the theory for the formation
Crater Formation/Features of the Moon?

4. Describe the formation of many of the impact craters on the moon.

11. When did the largest impact craters occur in the Moon’s history?

5. How fast are objects going through space by the time they impact the
moon?
12. What evidence suggests that there has been a great reduction in the
number of impacts on the Moon’s surface? (Hint: How old are the majority
of the craters?)
6. What produces the central peak inside of the larger craters?
13. Mare Tranquillitatis is Latin for, “Sea of Tranquility”. What significance 25. Why does the moon turn a shade of red during a lunar eclipse?
does this location have to the Apollo program?

26. Label the correct locations for solar and lunar eclipses: words to
use → Sun, Moon, Earth, penumbra, umbra
Facts about the Moon

Write a one sentence summary for FIVE of the 10 facts provided.

14.

15.

16.

22. Compare the umbra and the penumbra of an eclipse.

17.

18.
23. What phase of the moon occurs during a solar eclipse?

How often does an eclipse happen?

24. What is an eclipse?

24. What phase of the moon occurs during a lunar eclipse?
 Earth and Moon Compared 2 - On Earth, erosion due to water and wind eventually erases
the craters caused by impacts of objects large enough to hit the
The Moon's landscape is starkly different from the Earth's.
ground. Depending on the climate conditions at an impact site, a
Instead of being dominated by continents and oceans, the Moon's
crater about a kilometer across (such as the famous Meteor Crater in
face is pockmarked by craters — circular pits or basins blasted out by
Arizona) can be eroded beyond recognition in a hundred thousand
high-speed impacts of interplanetary debris over the history of the
years or so. (Note that a hundred thousand years is only 1/10,000 of a
solar system. The craters bear silent witness today to a time — billions
billion years — and we believe the age of the solar system to be about
of years ago — when collisions of such debris with larger bodies were
four and a half billion years.) The Moon has no air or water to erode a
much more common.
crater away — it still bears scars billions of years old.
The Earth, too, must have experienced a wealth of such
3 - Surface activity on the Earth — that is, volcanoes,
impacts, but our dynamic planet has several characteristics that
earthquakes, and the slow motions of its crust through plate tectonics
erase craters relatively quickly (on the geologic time scale) — or even
— eventually masks even the largest impact craters over periods of
prevent them from forming in the first place:
millions to hundreds of millions of years. The Moon is a geologically
1 - Earth's atmosphere burns up the smaller pieces of dead world now, so it lacks this "healing" process, too.
asteroidal metal and rock or cometary ice by friction. The typical
speed of such a meteoroid is about 25,000 kilometers per hour — and
intense heat from friction with the air vaporizes them; as they burn
up, we see their quick fiery trails as meteors (sometimes called
"shooting stars"). The Moon has no atmosphere, so even the tiniest
bit of high-speed dust can hit the surface and cause a crater to form.
 Crater Formation Craters larger than about 10 kilometers across often have
central peaks, which are hills or mountains pushed up by pressure
We might expect that impact craters would have a variety of
within the Moon when the weight of the rocks that were blasted
shapes, depending on the angle at which the bombarding chunk hit
away was removed.
the ground — that only impacts from directly overhead would
produce circular craters. However, all but a very few, small lunar The very largest impact features on the Moon are the
craters are circular. (In fact, the circularity of the Moon's craters was enormous impact basins: great circular plains from 300 to more than
long used as an argument against the so-called "impact hypothesis" a thousand kilometers across. There are only about two or three
for making the craters.) dozen of these — and all of the largest ones are on the Moon's
"nearside" (the hemisphere that faces Earth). Astronomers believe
However, the impacts that formed most craters on the Moon
that many of these great basins formed about four billion years ago in
(and elsewhere) did so by literally exploding, not just by gouging up
a relatively short period of time — only two-tenths of a billion years
the ground. Craters formed by such detonations — similar to those
or so. Why the largest impacts took place only then is not certain, but
made by artillery shells — are circular regardless of what direction the
it is clear that after that only smaller impacts took place.
projectiles came from.

The energy source for an impact's explosion is the raw speed

of the impacting object. An interplanetary chunk headed toward the
Moon is accelerated by the Moon's gravity; astronomers' calculations
indicate that an object falling from deep space will have a minimum
speed of about 5,000 mph on impact. At that speed, the sudden
collision of a meteoroid (as these cosmic pieces of debris are called)
with the Moon's surface generates enough heat to vaporize much or
all of itself and some of the ground it penetrates. The vaporized
material violently expands — explodes — forming a circular crater.

Crater Features

Along with heat and light, the force of an impact's explosion

blasts a good deal of material out of the bowl and across the
surrounding terrain. Sometimes this material spreads out in streaks or
rays extending away from the crater.
 Lunar Maria (the Lowlands) and the Lunar Highlands The Earth then remelted
and differentiated into the
The floors of the great basins on the side of the Moon that
three main layers it has
faces the Earth are covered by vast expanses of darker-colored rock.
today: crust, mantle, and
These Great Plains are relatively smooth and have fewer large craters
core. The debris that was
than other regions of the Moon. They are called lowlands or (more
ejected into space accreted
commonly) maria, the plural of the Latin word mare (meaning ocean
together to form our Moon.
or sea), because Galileo and other early telescope users thought they
Because only sections of
resembled large smooth areas of water.
the Earth’s crust and upper
Today we understand that they are not water, but instead are mantle were broken away
solidified lava that flowed across the lower-lying areas of the Moon the Moon was created from
after it was "wounded" by the great basin-forming impacts. Samples these lighter minerals and rocks giving it the composition that it has
of mare material brought back by America's Apollo astronauts were today of being very similar to the Earth’s crust.
determined to be from 3.9 to 3.2 billion years old, younger than many
Without a dense core and a heavy mantle, the Moon has only
other areas of the Moon's crust. The highlands make up about 80% of th
1/6 of the Earth’s gravity, making it impossible for it to hold onto a
the Moon's surface (including virtually all of the farside) and are
dense atmosphere like the Earth’s. As a result, the Moon lacks any
saturated with ancient impact craters.
protection from objects impacting its surface. Early in its history, a
History of the Lunar Surface rain of debris left over from the origin of the solar system bombarded
and covered the Moon's surface with impact craters. The largest of
Our modern view of the history of the Moon is based largely these — the ones that blasted out the great impact basins —took
on analysis of lunar surface samples and other data obtained by the place toward the end of the period of heaviest bombardment, about
U.S. and U.S.S.R.'s lunar probes in the 1960's and 1970's. It appears 4 billion years ago.
that the Moon formed shortly after the Earth and other planets,
about 4.6 billion years ago. Several theories have been proposed for For nearly a billion years after that, lava seeped out of the
how the Moon formed. The Impact theory has the most support from Moon's interior, flooding the lowlands and forming the maria. Since
the scientific community based on comparisons made from rocks then, there has been little activity on the Moon's surface aside from
found on the Moon and the Earth. In this theory, a large Mars-sized sporadic, crater-forming impacts, generally by smaller pieces. Much
object impacted the early Earth, blasting a portion of its crust and more recently, there were a few, brief visits by "objects" that left
upper-mantle into space. The heavy iron core of the impactor was footprints instead of craters — twelve American astronauts, the first
absorbed into the Earth creating a, “Core and a Half”. which occurred during the Apollo 11 landing in the Sea of Tranquility
in 1969.
 10 FACTS ABOUT THE MOON 6). Only 12 people have stepped on the surface of the Moon, spread
over six missions between 1969 and 1972. All of these landings have
1). The Moon is the only surface in the Solar System (other than
been American. Those astronauts are Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz"
Earth) to have been stepped on by human beings.
Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Sheppard, Edgar Mitchell, David
2). Footprints on the Moon will remain there for millions of years as a Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke Jr., Eugene Cernan and
result of there being no atmosphere to cause weathering or erosion. Harrison Schmitt.
The only source of weathering and erosion are impacts from meteors
7). In 1610, the Italian astronomer, Galileo Galilei noticed that the
and other debris.
Moon had craters caused by meteorite impacts. This disgraced people
3). The Moon has no atmosphere. It is through the atmosphere that at the time who believed the Moon to be a perfect sphere created by
light is dispersed (spread) and sound waves travel (light waves and the gods.
sound waves bounce off tiny particles in an atmosphere). This means
8). The first manned moon landing was on 20th July 1969 (Apollo 11
that no sound can be heard on the Moon. The sky is always black
launched on 16th July 1969). The last manned moon landing was
because light cannot be spread, unlike on Earth where light spreads to
three years later on 11th December 1972 (Apollo 17 launched on 7th
give the sky a blue color and on Mars where it spreads through its thin
December 1972). Despite the manned lunar missions being named
atmosphere to give the sky a pinkish/reddish color.
“Apollo”, in classical mythology, Apollo is actually the god of the Sun.

4). We always see the same side of the Moon but the Moon does 9). The Moon is the fourth biggest moon in the Solar System (after
rotate. Because of the Moon’s relatively short distance to the Earth, Ganymede and Callisto of Jupiter, and Titan of Saturn). The Moon is
our gravity has “tidally locked” the moon into a synchronous orbit. also larger than the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris. It is the 14th largest
This means that the moon takes the same amount of time to revolve known object in the Solar System
around the Earth as it does to rotate once on its axis. Every 29 days
10). Selenophobia is the name given for the persistent and irrational
the moon makes one complete revolution around the Earth while also
fear of the Moon. Sufferers of this phobia have panic attacks, with
completing one complete rotation on its axis. Therefore, even though
symptoms including sweating, trembling and feeling faint, whenever
the moon does rotate, it does so very slowly causing it to always
seeing or thinking about the Moon. The attacks are often stronger
position the same side towards the Earth.
when the Moon is bright or full.
5). The first time people on Earth ever saw the "Dark Side of the
Moon" was on 7th October 1959 when the Soviet (Russian)
spacecraft, Luna 3, sent back the first pictures. This revealed that the
far side of the Moon is much more cratered than the side facing Earth.
 How often does an eclipse happen? The darkest part of a shadow is known as the umbra, while the
penumbra is the lighter, gray area of a shadow. Areas on the Earth
An eclipse occurs when one celestial object moves into the
that are in the penumbra will witness a partial eclipse, while areas on
shadow of another. Here on Earth, eclipses involve the Sun and the
Earth in the umbra will witness a total eclipse.
Earth's moon and can occur only when they are nearly in a straight
line. More directly, the Moon orbits earth on a different plane than Lunar Eclipse
the Earth orbits the Sun, and eclipses can occur only when the Moon
is close to the intersection of these two planes, which happens twice
a year. Eclipses can occur for about two months around these
intersection times (called nodes to astronomers). There can be from
four to seven eclipses in a calendar year, which repeat according to
various eclipse cycles.

During a total solar eclipse, the new moon appears to cover

the entire Sun because the two objects have the same apparent size
when viewed from the Earth. Years and years into the future, this
won't be the case as the Moon is gradually orbiting Earth farther away
from us (and will appear smaller). During a partial solar eclipse, the
Solar Eclipse
moon appears to cover only part of the Sun. Depending on how much
of the Sun is obstructed, the sky might turn interestingly darker
(almost like you're looking at the world through sunglasses), but it
won't grow to the nighttime-darkness of a total eclipse.

Lunar eclipses occur during the full moon when the moon
passes through the Earth's shadow, and part or all of the moon is
plunged into darkness. During a lunar eclipse the Moon appears to go
through all of the phases over the course of about an hour. During
totality, the Moon will go from completely in shadow to having a
reddish hue. This is caused by the sunlight being bent around the
Earth and passing through the atmosphere scattering the red light of
the spectrum and projecting it onto the Moon.