Lunar wrinkle ridges

We just learned about Lunar Domes.

Let's keep learning about the moon!

Another thing you can see on the moon look like wrinkled lines.
These are called wrinkle ridges.

If you look inside the crater Letronne, you will see some wrinkled lines that are wrinkle ridges.

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: First Human in Space - Yuri Gagarin

Lunar Domes

We've learned about the moon's highlands, maria and rille.

What about volcanoes on the moon?

There are no active volcanoes there, but there are some old ones that we call lunar domes.

The lava from the volcanoes is what made the rilles that we already learned about,
and the dark maria areas are from when lava flowed long ago.

The lunar domes look like circle shaped lumps or holes on the moon.

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Explorer - 1

Moon Rille

We've learned so far about the lunar highlands and maria.

There are long deep marks like grooves on the moon that are called rilles.

(from: wikipedia - rille)



Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Sputnik

Moon - Maria

Let's keep learning about the Moon.

Last time we learned that the bright markings are called lunar highlands.

The dark markings are called the lunar maria.

The maria are darker because the ground there is made up of cooled lava from a long time ago.


(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Hubble Space Telescope

Moon - Highlands

We just learned about the Cat's Eye Nebula.

Let's learn a little more about the Moon!

We've already learned that the moon orbits the earth every 27 days or so.

And we learned about the first moon spacecrafts Luna 2 and Ranger 4 as well as the first people to walk on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission.

But what about the moon itself?

If you look at the moon you'll see that it has bright and dark markings on it.
The bright areas are called the lunar highlands, or terrae.

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Big & Little Dipper

Apollo 11 Moon Landing

We just learned about the Ranger - 4 Spacecraft.

First we launched satellites into outer space.
Then we sent people up to orbit the earth.
Next we sent a spacecraft with no people to land on the moon.

So who was the first to put a person on the moon?
The Apollo 11 mission by the United States was the first manned spacecraft to land on the moon,
on July 20th 1969.


(from: wikipedia - apollo 11)

The two astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first astronauts to ever set foot on the moon.


When Neil Armstrong first put his foot on the moon he said the famous words:
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Wow!

Isn't it just amazing to look up into space at the moon and know that someone actually walked on it?

Ranger 4 - First American spacecraft on the moon

We've learned that the first spacecraft to land on the moon was the Luna 2, by the Russians.

The first American spacecraft to land on the moon was the Ranger 4 on April 23, 1962.

(from: wikipedia - ranger 4)

Luna 2 - First spacecraft on the moon

We've learned about the first satellite in outer space sputnik and the first American satellite Explorer 1.

Then we learned about the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin from Russia.
Followed by the Americans Alan Shepard and John Glenn.

The next big target in the space race was to get to the moon!

The first spacecraft to land on the moon was the Russian's Luna 2, on September 14, 1959.

(from: wikipedia - luna 2)

Orbit

We just learned a little about our Solar System.

Let's learn about Orbit!

The earth orbits around the sun, which means that it spins around the sun kind of like the outside of a ferris wheel or merry go round.
It takes one year for the earth to do a full orbit around the sun.

(From: Wikipedia - Solar System)

The moon orbits around the earth, and we see a full moon about every 27 days, almost a whole month.
If there are two full moons in one month, that is called a blue moon.

(From: Wikipedia - Lunar Month)

The earth spins (rotates) and when it does a full spin around that takes one day.

(From: Wikipedia - Earth's Rotation)