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1 |
I see the moon and the
moon sees me, |
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2 |
The moon is the Earth's only natural satellite and its nearest neighbor in the solar system. |
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3 |
The diameter of the moon is about 2,160 miles (3,476 kilometers), basically one-fourth that of the Earth's diameter. |
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4 |
The moon's gravitational pull on the Earth is the main cause of the rise and fall of ocean tides. |
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5 |
On average, there will be 41 months that have two Full Moons in every century, so you could say that once in a Blue Moon actually means once every two-and-a-half years. |
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6 |
The moon, Earth's only natural satellite, is large as moons go. It is fifth in diameter among planetary satellites, more than two-thirds as large as Mercury, and more than three times the diameter of the largest asteroid. It is, in fact, over one-fourth the size of the earth, with a diameter of 2160 miles (3476 kilometers). |
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7 |
Since the moon is a relatively near neighbor, we can measure its distance easily by geometrical methods. The average is 238,857 miles (384,403 kilometers). |
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8 |
Next to the sun, the full moon is the brightest object in the heavens. However, its surface is rough and brownish and reflects light very poorly. In fact, the moon is about the poorest reflector in the solar system. The amount of light reflected by a celestial object is called the albedo (Latin: albus, white). The moon relects only 7% of the sunlight that falls upon it, so the albedo is 0.07. |
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9 |
There
are 240 known moons within the Solar
System, including 163 orbiting the planets, 4 orbiting
dwarf
planets, and dozens more orbiting small solar system bodies. Other stars and
their planets also have natural satellites. |
