My Science School

Life on the moon would be dark, quiet, and uncomfortable. But living there would definitely improve your high jump!

Earth’s sky looks blue during the day because the air on Earth scatters blue light from the sun in all directions. But there is no air on the moon to scatter sunlight, so its sky is pitch-black. On Earth, air carries sound. On the moon, no sound can be heard.

During the day, the moon’s surface gets hotter than boiling water. During the night, the moon is colder than the coldest place on Earth.

We are held on the surface of Earth by the pull of Earth’s gravity. When we weigh ourselves, we are really measuring how hard the gravity is tugging on us.

The moon’s gravity is weaker than Earth’s gravity. On the moon, you would weigh one-sixth as much as you weigh on Earth. If you weigh 27 kilograms on Earth, you would weigh only 4.5 kilograms on the moon! You could also jump six times higher on the moon than you could on Earth. And you could lift very heavy objects that you couldn’t even budge at home on Earth.

Picture Credit : Google

The surface of the moon is not the same all over. In some areas, it has broad, flat plains covered with powdery rock dust. In other areas, it has rugged mountains. It also has billions of round holes in the ground called craters.

Some of the craters are no bigger than a pencil point. Some are the size of a car tyre. And some are really enormous. The biggest crater on the moon is over 1,000 kilometres across.

What formed the moon’s craters and mountains? Chunks of rock called meteoroids move around the sun, just as Earth and the moon do. Sometimes these meteoroids crash into the moon. The moon and the meteoroids are moving so fast that the meteoroids make craters in the moon’s surface when they crash.

When meteoroids strike, they usually form walls of rock around the craters they make. Many of the moon’s mountains are really walls made by meteors.

Picture Credit : Google

An eclipse of the Moon

The night is clear, and a bright, full moon is shining. Slowly, a dark shadow begins to fall across the face of the moon. The shadow seems to move along until it completely covers the moon.

This event is called an eclipse of the moon, or a lunar eclipse. It takes place when Earth comes between the moon and the sun. The shadow creeping across the moon is the shadow of Earth!

What is Phases of the Moon? The moon seems to change from a thin crescent to a full circle. Each time the moon looks different, we say it is in a new phase. A phase is a change in the moon’s shape as it is seen from Earth.

1. In the moon’s first phase, it can’t be seen at all. That is because the moon is between Earth and the sun. The sun is shining on the side of the moon that faces the sun, but there is no sunlight on the side that faces us. So all we see is darkness.


2. After a day or two, the moon moves to one side of us. Then we can see a tiny bit of the side that is lit by the sun. We call this phase a crescent moon.


3. After about seven days, we can see half of the moon’s sunlit side. This phase is called a half moon.


4. After about two weeks, the moon is halfway around Earth from where it started. Now we can see the whole side of the moon that the sun is shining on. We call this phase a full moon. The moon keeps moving, and the part we can see gets smaller and smaller. Finally, the moon is between Earth and the sun again.

Picture Credit : Google

The moon is made of cold, hard rock. It is not a ball of hot, glowing gas like the sun. Yet, somehow, the moon shines.

But the moon doesn’t give off its own light. It reflects light from the sun. That means light from the sun bounces off the surface of the moon and some of that light reaches us on Earth.

The moon does not really reflect sunlight very well. Most of the rock on the moon is rough and dark grey, not smooth and shiny like a mirror. But the sun’s light is so bright that even the tiny bit that is reflected from the moon makes the moon appears to be glowing.

Earth shines, too! It reflects some of the sunlight that falls on it.

Picture Credit : Google

Myths about the Moon

Imagine that you lived in the world more than 2,000 years ago. Every night the moon appeared, but you had no idea what it was or why it seemed to change shape. Would you make up a story to explain it? Many ancient people did. Some early people thought the moon was a powerful god or goddess. The ancient Romans called their moon goddesses Luna and Diana. Diana was also the goddess of the hunt. The crescent moon was her bow, and the moonbeams were her arrow.

Some ancient people had stories about the moon and the sun together. Some Native Americans believed that the moon and the sun were brother and sister gods.

Some sky gazers saw figures like a cat, a frog, or a rabbit in the moon’s markings. Others saw the face of a man. Legends of various lands told how the “man in the moon” had been put in prison for stealing or for breaking religious rules.

Was there once life on the moon? Some people believed there was. A Greek writer named Plutarch told of moon demons that lived in caves. A German astronomer in the 1800’s, F. P. Gruithuisen, told of seeing a city on the moon through a telescope.

Even today, some people use stories to explain why the moon seems to change shape.

The San people of southern Africa tell one story that explains why the moon seems to change its shape. This story says that each month the moon almost dies. But it is reborn just in time to start life all over again. When this happens, it is seen as a thin sliver. For 13 nights, it grows until it becomes a full moon. The San celebrate this with three nights of dancing.

Then the moon begins to die again. For the next 13 nights, the sun, which the San see as the great hunter, battles the moon. Slowly the great hunter slices at the moon, until there is no moon left. For a few days, the moon seems to be dead. But soon it is reborn, and it begins growing again.

Picture Credit : Google

The Moon

The moon is the brightest object in our night sky. On some nights, the moon looks like a huge shining circle of light. On other nights, it looks like a thin, silver fingernail. But the moon does not really change its size or shape. And it does not make its own light. The light we see comes from the sun and bounces off the moon.

The stars are trillions of kilometres away. The sun is millions of kilometres away. But the moon is only about 384,000 kilometres away. As Earth moves through space, the moon is always beside it. The moon moves around Earth.

The moon is smaller than most planets and stars. If Earth were the size of a basketball, the moon would be about the size of a tennis ball.

The moon is a ball of grey rock. Some of it is covered with dust. It has no air and no water. Most living things that we know of could not survive on the moon.

Long ago, many groups of people in different places worshipped the moon. The ancient Romans named the moon Luna. Our word lunar means “of the moon”.

Picture Credit : Google