The Moon’s maria are basaltic lavas, not seas. Impact craters, including Daedalus and Copernicus, were left by billions of years of impacts. The Moon is the fifth-largest natural satellite and has been visited by humans. It may be a target for extraterrestrial colonization.
The Moon’s most prominent features are its maria, Latin for “seas,” because ancient astronomers believed they were actually filled with water. We now know they are basaltic lavas, ejected from volcanoes when the moon was much more geologically active. These lavas flowed into existing impact basins (with a few exceptions) and produced the maria we see so clearly today.
Other noticeable features on the Moon are its impact craters, left over from billions of years of impacts unattended by an atmosphere. Two of the largest impact craters are Daedalus and Copernicus. Many of the lunar craters come from a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment, which occurred about four billion years ago, when most of the stray asteroids in the solar system were still aggregating into larger bodies and finding stable orbits.
The Moon is also conspicuous in its magnitude. Besides being the most obvious thing in the night sky, the Moon (also known as the Moon) is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the solar system, after Ganymede, Titan, Io and Callisto, moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The Moon is large enough to maintain a gravity level approximately one-sixth that of Earth, low enough to allow astronauts to jump about six times as high as they would be able to on their home planet.
The Moon is also distinguished from other celestial bodies by being the only extraterrestrial body that has been visited by humans, and on several occasions. Now, both America and China are working on a space program to visit the Moon again. Due to its proximity to Earth and abundance of oxygen (in rock form), the Moon is often cited as a possible target for extraterrestrial colonization. NASA recently solicited artists’ impressions of colonists living and working on the Moon.
The Moon’s appearance as we know it is so ancient and entrenched, it seems hard to imagine what it might look like with human colonies illuminated, illuminating the Moon’s surface with tiny dots, just as Earth looks from space. Yet it’s only a matter of time!
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
