10 AMAZING Moon Discoveries That SCARED Astronomers

 

for as long as we exist  the moon was always up there above us  still every year we come up with more  and more  insane discoveries that create the most  bizarre theories possible  what is the strange substance recently  found on the far  side of the moon should we search for  life  why is the moon falling 10.  the moon is not dead the moon appears as  stone cold  dead it's gray crater strong  desert untouched by the hand of change  but for centuries people have reported  strange lights on the moon at a rate of  one every few months  on june 18 1178 five monks at canterbury  cathedral  reported an explosion on the moon the  strange lights are known as  transient lunar phenomena or tlps  these were dismissed as a fantasy until  in 2002  arlen krotz of columbia university in  new york  found that most occur at only six  locations  seismometers left on the moon have  reported several hundred  moon quakes and krotz considers that  tlps occur when they cause gas from deep  in the lunar interior to release  explosively  through fissures and cracks a mere half  ton of gas disappearing into the vacuum  would be enough to create a cloud a few  miles across  that persists for between five and ten  minutes  tlps have the same feature they cover at  least one square mile  they last from a minute to a few hours  and they affect a brightening  dimming or even shading of the lunar  surface  if crotz is correct the moon is a more  severe deadly place for humans  than anyone expected nine  locked in orbit perhaps the most  remarkable thing about the moon is that  it always shows us the same face  but since both earth and moon  are rotating and orbiting how is that  possible  well long ago the earth's gravitational  effects decreased the moon's rotation  about its axis once the moon's orbit  slowed enough to match its orbital  period  the effect stabilized lots of the moons  around other planets behave the same way  what about phases  that's how they work as the moon orbits  earth it spends part of its time between  the sun and us  and the light at half faces away from us  this is called a new moon  ergo there's no such thing as a dark  side of the moon just the side we'll  never  see as the moon swings around in its  orbit a thin sliver of reflected  sunlight is witnessed on earth as a  crescent moon  once the moon is located opposite the  sun it becomes fully lit from our view  and we see  a full moon 8. earth's sister  moons the moon is earth's only natural  satellite right  maybe not in 1999 scientists discovered  that a three mile wide asteroid is  probably caught in earth's gravitational  grip  thereby becoming a satellite of our  planet this asteroid called kruthni  takes 770 years to complete a  horseshoe-shaped orbit  around earth it will remain in a hung  state around earth  for at least 5 000 years moon  meet your sibling 7. the moon is falling  why doesn't the moon fall down the  answer first recognized by isaac newton  is that it is falling down it just never  gets to the ground  to prove why the moon orbits the earth  newton used this analogy  imagine a cannon that fires a cannonball  horizontally across the ground  gravity causes its trajectory to curve  downwards  and after perhaps 100 meters  it hits the ground but imagine a much  more giant cannon that fires a much  faster cannonball it travels further  maybe a mile  before its downward curving trajectory  intercepts the earth  now imagine a gigantic cannon the mother  of all cannons  which fires a cannonball at 28 080 miles  per hour  at this tremendous speed the fact that  the earth is a ball  is of crucial importance as fast as the  cannonball  curves down towards the earth the  earth's surface curves away from the  cannonball  the cannonball therefore never hits the  ground it falls forever in a circle  this is precisely what the moon is doing  proof that newton said the truth  comes from the international space  station strikingly  gravity at its altitude is about 90  percent of what it is on the earth's  surface  the astronauts are lightweight but not  because  they are behind gravity but because they  are falling  and a person in free fall as einstein  recognized  feels no gravity 6. some time ago the  moon was 10 times closer  immediately after the earth's birth 4.55  billion years ago  colossal space rocks the building blocks  of planets  were still careening around one such  planetesimal  rock the size of present-day mars hit  our planet  the magna ocean that flooded the earth  was splashed  off into space forming a ring the ring  around the earth made by  thea's impact was short-lived and its  material  instantly cooled and congealed into our  satellite  on its birthday the moon was 10 times  closer to our planet than it is nowadays  the tides it established in the earth's  oceans  drained the moon of orbital energy and  provoked it to fall over  billions of years to its recent location  5. moon dust smells of gunpowder  in 1961 there was a real fear that the  moon was covered in a thick layer of  dust  where any spacecraft would sink with no  trace  although such fears proved groundless  the moon is covered with a thin layer  of fine dust moon dust coated the space  suits of the apollo astronauts  it got into every little hole in their  spacecraft and  smelt of gunpowder today knowing that  tiny nanoparticles can reside in the  lungs causing breathing problems  there is a fear that moon dust could be  toxic  4. space rock punching bag the moon's  heavily cratered surface  results from intense pummeling by space  rocks and 4.1 billion and 3.8 billion  years ago  the scars of this war appearing as  craters have not decayed much for two  main reasons  geologically the moon is not very active  so earthquakes volcanoes and  mountain building don't damage the  landscape as they do on earth  and with since there's no atmosphere  with no wind or rain  so very little surface erosion occurs  three  there is a man buried on the moon a  hundred billion people are buried on the  earth for some reason  only one person is buried on the moon  his name is gene shoemaker  in the 1960s shoemaker was involved with  the training of apollo astronauts  he fought to send a scientist to the  moon and finally got his way when  schmidt was included on apollo 17.  shoemaker spent much of his later years  searching for impact craters around the  world  and discovered several in 1997 during  one expedition in australia  his car was involved in a head-on  collision on a forgotten road a few  hundred miles northwest of alice springs  two years later some of his ashes were  carried to the moon  and deposited by the lunar prospector  space probe  two china studies weird substances found  on moon's far side  chinese scientists published an analysis  of a bizarre substance they recognized  on the far side of the moon  the u22 rover from china's chiang 4  mission  found the gel-like substance in july  2019 and in 2020  chinese researchers described the  material in a study  the glassy substance has a dark green  color and resembles breccia or  crushed fragments of minerals that were  cemented together  information about the material was  gathered from u2  2's panoramic and hazard avoidance  cameras  and the rover's visible and near  infrared spectrometer  bnis instrument researchers  stated that the material may have formed  in an impact or a volcanic eruption  one the best place to look for the first  life forms on earth is on the moon  around 800 million years ago an asteroid  the size of key west hit the moon it  formed the striking 57-mile copernicus  crater  and splattered debris far and wide the  earth has come under similar bombardment  in fact our  planet is a bigger target inevitably  some of the impacts on earth ejected  debris which hit the moon  so just as on earth we find meteorites  from the moon and mars  on the moon we should discover  meteorites from the earth  this raises the intriguing possibility  of discovering  preserved inside lunar rocks biological  material  and even fossil microorganisms from the  dawn of life  on earth evidence long ago erased  by terrestrial geological activity  paradoxically we may have to go to the  moon to find out about our  ultimate origins