Fun Facts about the Moon

Who Parked the Moon?

The Moon has at least three distinct layers of rocks. Contrary to the idea that heavier objects sink, the heavier rocks are found on the surface. And there is a definite disparity in the distribution of minerals. Ubell asked, “If the Earth and Moon were created at the same time, near each other, why has one body got all the iron [the Earth] and the other [the Moon] not much?” asked Ubell. “The differences suggest that Earth and Moon came into being far from each other, an idea that stumbles over the inability of astrophysicists to explain how exactly the Moon became a satellite of the Earth.”

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An event occurred in 1958 in the Moon’s Alphonsus crater, which shook the idea that all internal moonquake activity was simply settling rocks. In November of that year, Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory startled the scientific world by photographing the first recorded gaseous eruption on the Moon near the crater’s peak. Kozyrev attributed this to escaping fluorescent gases. He also detected a reddish glow characteristic of carbon compounds, which “seemed to move and disappeared after an hour.”

h/t Jerry Pournelle