The Moon
The Moon (or Luna) is the Earth’s only natural satellite and was formed 4.6 billion years ago.
The Moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth meaning the same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth. (This means we only ever see the same half of the Moon -The other half is known as the Dark Side.) The first unmanned mission to the Moon was in 1959 by the Soviet Lunar Program with the first manned landing being Apollo 11 in 1969. |
The Moon is drifting away from the Earth:
The Moon is moving approximately 3.8 cm away from our planet every year. It is estimated that it will continue to do so for around 50 billion years. The Moon has no atmosphere: This means that the surface of the Moon is unprotected from cosmic rays, meteorites and solar winds, and has huge temperature variations. The lack of atmosphere means no sound can be heard on the Moon, and the sky always appears black. |
On average, the distance from Earth to the moon is about 238,855 miles. If there was a motorway from our School to the Moon and you could travel there by car, it would take over 3412 hours. (Can you use a calculator to work out roughly how many days this would be?)