Over The Moon

By: Lillian B and Elizabeth B

The Moon’s Atmosphere

According to NASA, we don’t know exactly what the Moon’s atmosphere is made of, but we do have some clues as to what it is. This is what NASA has to say about that, “The Apollo 17 mission deployed an instrument called the Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (LACE) on the moon's surface. It detected small amounts of a number of atoms and molecules including helium, argon, and possibly neon, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide.”. NASA also believes that there are several sources for gases in the Moon’s atmosphere.

The Moon’s Craters

The moon has over 1,000 craters. The discussion of craters has gone on for centuries ever since the first crater “Tycho” was discovered on the moon in 1609. The largest crater on the moon is the “South Pole Aitken Basin'' and is known to be the oldest crater. It is also one of the largest craters in the entire solar system. The exact number of craters on the moon will blow your minds, there are a total of 9,137 craters. It is really easy for meteors to make craters on the moon because there is no atmosphere, so that's why there are so many craters on the moon and there will possibly be more in the future.

Is there Water on the Moon?

In 2020, NASA announced that there are water molecules in the sunlit areas of the moon. Though NASA has confirmed and shared that there are water molecules on the moon, this is what they have to say about how much water is on the moon, “The Moon is really dry. As a comparison, the Sahara Desert has 100 times the amount of water than what the SOFIA mission detected in the lunar soil.”. (The SOFIA mission was the mission that detected water molecules)

Missions to the Moon

(All of these missions can be found on NASA’s website, that is where this information is from.)

The first mission to the moon was Apollo 8. However, they didn’t land on the moon, they circled it and went back to Earth.

Current and Past Missions

Chang'e 5 - CNSA (China) Lunar Sample Return Mission (2020)

Chandrayaan 2 - ISRO (India) Lunar Orbiter, Lander and Rover Mission (2019)

Beresheet - Space IL and Israeli Aerospace Industries (Israel) Lunar Lander (2019)

Chang'e 4 - CNSA (China) Lunar Farside Lander (2018)

Chang'e 3 - CNSA (China) Lunar Lander and Rover (2013)

LADEE - NASA Lunar Orbiter Dust Environment Mission (2013)

GRAIL - NASA Lunar Orbiter Mission (2011)

Chang'e 2 - CNSA Lunar Orbiter Mission (2010)

ARTEMIS-P1 and ARTEMIS-P2 - NASA Heliophysics/Lunar Orbiter Mission (2010)

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - NASA Lunar Orbiter Mission (2009)

LCROSS - NASA Lunar Impactor Mission (2009)

Chandrayaan-1 - ISRO (India) Lunar Orbiter Mission (2008)

Chang'e 1 - CAST (China) Lunar Orbiter Mission

Kaguya (SELENE) - JAXA Lunar Orbiter Mission

Deep Impact/EPOXI - NASA Mission to Comet Tempel 1 - Lunar Flyby

SMART 1 - ESA Lunar Orbiter Mission

Lunar Prospector - NASA Lunar Discovery Mission

AsiaSat 3/HGS-1 - Commercial Telecommunications Satellite

Clementine - DoD/NASA Lunar Mapping Mission

Hiten - ISAS Lunar Flyby and Orbiter

Galileo - NASA Mission to Jupiter - Lunar Flyby

Apollo - NASA Lunar Manned Missions

Lunar Orbiter - NASA Lunar Mapping Missions

Surveyor - NASA Lunar Lander Missions

Ranger - NASA Lunar Impact Missions

Luna and Zond - Soviet Lunar Missions

Lunar Timeline - Chronology of all Lunar Missions

The Outer Space Treaty

According to Britannica.com, the Outer Space Treaty prohibits any country from “owning” the moon. Britannica says, “Under the terms of the treaty, the parties are prohibited from placing nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the Moon, or on other bodies in space.”. Also, “Under the terms of the treaty, the parties are prohibited from placing nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the Moon, or on other bodies in space.”. Meaning that if any country does any damage to any celestial body or astronaut, they are responsible for it.

Moon Trees

We know, we know Moon trees sound like madness, But NASA has attempted to plant trees on the moon, so in 1971 they went to the moon and planted the seeds on the moon’s surface, sadly the process became incomplete. Due to some particular circumstances, the seeds did not survive, Some of the reasons for it were no atmosphere, too cold, not enough sunlight, not good enough soil, and not enough water. Basically all the basics you need to grow a plant is not there. Later in 1976, the camp “Camp Koch” was given one of the seeds from the moon and grew a beautiful sycamore that they now call t

2. Our moon is the fifth largest moon in the solar system.

3. The moon's natural distance from earth is 384403 kilometers which is (238857 miles).

4. The moon orbits the earth every 27.3 days.

5. Mons Huygens is the tallest mountain on the moon, it is 4700 meters tall.

6. The side that we see from earth is called the near side and the side that we can’t see is called the far side.

7. The NASA Apollo 11 mission in 1969 was the first manned mission to go to the moon.

8. The first person to set foot on the moon was Neil Armstrong.

9. Research may continue but most scientists agree that the moon’s features makes it look like it’s been through a little war.

10. The earth's tides are largely caused by the moon's gravitational pull.