![]() For most of human history, people thought the Moon was a smooth, rocky body. The Moon’s observational history didn’t push knowledge forward very quickly. Lastly, the Moon is made of low-density stuff, only some 3.3 g/cm 3, which is far less than Earth’s density or that of the other terrestrial planets. ![]() It’s inclined 5.1° relative to the plane of the ecliptic, the orbital location of most bodies in the solar system. It’s also strange for a planet and moon system to be so relatively close in mass - the Moon’s roughly 1 percent of Earth’s mass is very high compared with most planetary systems. That is, the high degrees of speed - rotational and orbital - and mass in the system. One puzzle is the high angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system. Puzzles over the Moon posed to planetary scientists go a long way back. For astronomy enthusiasts, it’s either the target of fascination, for lunar and planetary observers, or an object of scorn and derision, for deep-sky fans. The Moon is always there, going through its orbit about Earth, and changing phase from our perspective night to night. The name originated from the Old English mōna, whose basis predated 725 AD, and traces back more distantly to a proto-Germanic beginning. ![]() The brightest object in the night sky, a target of fascination and folklore for eons, the Moon hides multiple mysteries. The answers, however, took a very long time in coming. Perhaps they wondered what it was and where it came from. Once upon a time, our earliest ancestors, on the plains of Africa, gazed skyward and saw a bright Moon in our sky. ![]() During the Artemis test mission in 2022, Orion passes close to the Moon’s surface, with Earth a small crescent in the background. ![]()
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