The moon has mystified and astounded humans for untold generations. With the naked eye, you can notice two different types of terrain: lighter highlands and darker plains. By the middle of the 17th century, an astronomer by the name of Galileo made telescopic observations, noting an almost endless array of overlapping craters. We have also known for more than a century that the Moon is less dense than the Earth. Although some information was known about the Moon prior to the space age, this new era revealed many new facets of our nearest celestial neighbor. Our present knowledge of the Moon is far greater than for any other object in the solar system with the exception of our own Earth.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the surface of the Moon. He was followed by Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, both of whom flew on the Apollo 11 mission. They and other moon walkers experienced the effects of the Moon's lower gravitational pull. The Moon's pull is one-sixth that of the Earth's; therefore a man who weighs 180 pounds (82 kilograms) on Earth will weigh only 30 pounds (14 kilograms) on the Moon. For some interesting statistics on the moon click here.
The Moon is located 238,857 miles (384,403 kilometers) from the Earth. Its diameter is 2,160 miles (3,476 kilometers). The rotation and revolution of the Moon around the Earth takes 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes. This consistent rotation is caused by an uneven distribution of mass in the Moon, which allows Earth's gravity to keep one lunar hemisphere permanently turned toward the Earth.
