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FAST FACTS

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The Moon

|The Moon spins once during the time that it takes to orbit the Earth

01: Diameter 2,160 miles (3,476 km)

02: Rotation period

27.3 days

A record year

oron ine tartn    ^vj

once, so one side    ' 4

of the Moon always faces Earth

03: Orbital period

27.3 days

04: Surface

temperaturę

-240°F to 240°F (-150°C to 120°C)

•The lunar rover speed record is 10.56 mph (17 km/h). Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke set this in 1972 when driving to the Lunar Module (LM) from Descartes Crater.

and the other (the far side) always faces away.

|The first-ever pictures of the far side of the Moon were taken by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 in October 1959.

05: Gravity at eąuator

0.165 (Earth = 1)

•In 1972, Apollo 17 crewmembers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt traveled 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from the LM, farther than any others.

> Apollo 8 crewmembers, James Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman, were the first people to see the far side. They went around the back of the Moon ten times in December 1968.

•Astronauts do not

travel morę than 6 miles (9.7 km) from the LM—at this distance, they would only just be able to walk back if their rover broke down.

|The far side of the Moon is different from the near side. The Moon’s rocky crust is 9 miles (15 km) thicker on the far side, and the craters there have not been filled by volcanic lava as on the near side.

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The Moon was originally much closer

to the Earth than it is now. It is moving

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away at around 1.5 in

The Moorts gravity is one sixth of that on Earth, so heavy items, such as rocks, are much easier to pick up. Also, your Portable Life Support System—the backpack that supplied you with oxygen and kept you cool—would weigh 31 Ib (14 kg) instead of the 190 Ib (86 kg) that it does on Earth.

(3.8 cm) per year.

LM

About 50 robotic craft flew to the Moon between 1959 and 1976. After which no craft, either manned or robotic, journeyed there until 1990. Since then, about ten robotic craft have been there.

2007 Chang’e 1

The first of China’s lunar missions used a craft that’s named after the Chinese goddess of the Moon.

2008 Chandrayaan-1

India opened its lunar expedition with this craft that identifies water molecules in the Moon’s soil.

2009 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

This maps the Moon for landing sites for futurę manned missions.

2009 LCR0SS

The Lunar Crater 0bservation and Sensing Satellite records water vapor on the Moon.

2003 Smart 1

The first European craft to travel to the Moon took both x-ray and infrared images.

(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. Ali Rights Reserved.