The Moon: presenting a few reasons why it's FREAKING AWESOME

Here at Science Space it’s a well known-fact that I love weird facts. I also love writing them down to make sure everyone on staff knows about them. Whenever we produce a new show, I write one of these background briefing documents. They’re becoming a bit notorious for their liberal smattering of “Joh-isms” and ridiculousness but they’re fun so who cares.

As with the Solar System series, I thought they deserved to be shared. Plus the whole point of this website is to show people what I do right?

Right?

Anyway this is the Background Briefing document I wrote in conjunction with the release of our brand new Planetarium show “Lunar Expedition”. My colleague Amanda Kruger and I wrote the main story and I fleshed it out while she painstakingly coded every little movement in Digistar. Get yourself a workplace with talented co-workers. I would highly recommend!

Oh and it should be pointed out that even though I’m publishing this background information, to get the BEST experience you should absolutely come visit us and see the show for yourself. There’s really nothing like a Planetarium. I still pinch myself that I get to tell stories with it!

THE MOON! (I mean… it’s upside down… but it’s still pretty!)

First things first…

The moon holds a very important place in the cultural history of our planet. First nations cultures have countless stories about the moon that show a really deep understanding of its cycles. Stories from Arnhem Land show that First Nations people in Australia understood the link between the moon and the tides. We can’t talk about specifics in our shows given that we don’t have permission we should acknowledge western science isn’t the only perspective. It’s the bare minimum.

Artifacts from across Europe show that ancient people (up to 8000 BCE!) had mapped the lunar calendar, using it to tell time. Countless poems and artworks featuring the moon pepper human history… some are definitely better than others.

What I’m trying to say is that we’ve been looking up and dreaming about the moon for a VERY long time. It’s definitely worth pointing that out to our visitors before we dive into the very WESTERN world of Selenology (the study of the moon).

Flying to the moon

It takes about 3 days to travel to the moon in a rocket. In Solar System distances that’s practically next door but even that distance is VAST. To put it into perspective, you could fit ALL of the planets in the solar system end to end in between the Earth and the Moon.

(Saturn’s rings are actually WIDER than the distance between the Earth and the Moon… just in case anyone asks.)

What I’m trying to say is SPACE IS BIG.

The Apollo missions to the moon were a HUGE deal back in the 50s and 60s. To be completely fair, they’re a HUGE deal now. If you take a deep dive into how they actually got there, it’s kind of intense.

If you look at the average iPhone in use today and compare it to the Apollo 11 guidance computer, the phone has about 100,000 times the power that the Lunar Lander had. And that thing successfully LANDED ON THE FLIPPING MOON.

That’s INSANE.

In total, 6 Apollo missions landed on the moon in and around Tranquillity Base. Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 conducted scientific exploration, played golf, tooled around in rovers and brought back moon rocks for us to study.

There were a few missions before that though. One of the most important ones to point out is Apollo 8. This was the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon so the astronauts aboard were the first humans to see the far side of the moon in person.

They’re also the ones who took that famous “Blue Marble” shot. You can go online and listen to the astronauts scramble for the camera!

This photo has long been heralded as the beginning of the environmental movement. It was taken by William Anders who later said “We set out to explore the moon but instead we discovered the Earth.”

Actually, this is probably the best example of what psychologists call “the overview effect”. It’s what happens to your perspective when you see the Earth as a whole from space. Astronauts from Yuri Gagarin to Mae Jemison report feeling small and like the need to take care of the Earth is amplified. Borders don’t matter from space. The atmosphere looks thin and fragile.

The fact that humanity is a team on a floating piece of rock in the middle of the infinite universe is just thrown in your face and your whole outlook on life itself changes.

… or so they tell me. I’ve never been to space. Too cold.

Fun fact - Jim Lovell was one of the crew on Apollo 8 and you can hear him on the recordings when the astronauts saw the Earthrise for the first time. He was also the commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13. Two days into the mission, an oxygen tank exploded and they very nearly didn’t make it back to Earth in one piece. It’s, frankly, a miracle they all survived.

Lovell has the honour of being played by Tom I-consistently-play-real-life-heroic- white-people-triumphing-in-the-face-of-overwhelming-adversity Hanks. So that’s good for him.

Things to point out on the moon!

The first thing to point out is that the moon might look a little… off. That’s good old Northern Hemisphere Bias at work.

This is something that literally didn’t occur to me until I went to the Northern Hemisphere, looked up at the full moon and went “cool…. That’s the moon… but it doesn’t look right.” I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t right until I went and did some digging and the answer is so OBVIOUS I’m really kicking myself I didn’t figure it out.

If you’re standing on the Northern Hemisphere, you’re essentially looking down when you look up at the moon. And when you’re standing in the Southern Hemisphere, you’re looking up when you look up.

Geddit?

OK yeah that’s confusing. Have a look at this:

Thanks Science Alert! This image is CRAZY-helpful.

Basically the Northern Hemisphere is looking at it upside down. But because Northern Hemisphere bias is a thing, conventionally the north pole of the moon is North from their perspective. Ugh.

So the Digistar version that we look at is conventionally the right way around but from our point of view it’s upside down. You can let everyone know that we’ve got a Southern Hemisphere moon out in the atrium - that one’s correct.

Perspective is everything right?

Two sides to every moon

I would recommend starting to point things out on the more familiar side of the moon - the near side.

Actually that’s something you should definitely get out of the habit of saying immediately. There’s no “light” or “dark” side of the moon - no matter how insistent Pink Flloyd may be. Because the moon is tidally locked, we do see one side all the time and not the other, but the light from the sun hits every inch of the moon as it orbits the Earth.

So conventionally, we have a “near” side (near to the Earth) and a “far” side. The near side is locked to us which means that’s the only view we’ll ever get. It’s the one that has the dark and light grey splotches on it.

That’s something you can definitely point out and we’ve got some buttons programmed into the show so you can bring up labels. There are basically a few types of formation that you can see from Earth; Lunar Maria and Craters.

The Maria are “Seas”. Johannes Kepler is the one responsible for that misnomer. Astronomers when they looked up decided that the Maria were clearly filled with liquid water (not unreasonably to be fair) and so because latin was a contender for “global scientific language” (thank goodness that didn’t happen), Kepler coined the term “mare” for each sea.

They’re all either named after people, places, weather events or states of being. Here are a few you should know:

Mare Smythii - The sea of William Henry Smyth. I mean - this one’s not vital, it’s just ridiculous and I love it. Apparently this guy was an astronomer… cool.
Mare Crisium - The sea of Crisis. #2020

There are three seas kind of in a diagonal line - they’re easy to spot and point out to people. Plus you can see them from your backyard. Naming them is my party trick. I’m clearly super fun at parties and go to them often…

Mare Fecundiatis - The Sea of Fertility
Mare Tranquillitatis - The Sea of Tranquility (NOTE - this one’s important! We’ll come back to that later)
Mare Serenitatis - The Sea of Serenity

There are a few others but they’re on the far side of the moon so we’ll see those later.

The last one that’s important to note isn’t a sea at all but it’s a dark grey patch. “Oceanus Procellarum” is the only ocean on the moon. In English it’s the “Ocean of Storms”.

The other things to point out on the near side are a few of the bigger craters. We’ve labelled “Tycho Crater” - it’s named after Tycho Brahe and it’s the biggest crater on the moon (aside from Atkins Basin).

Tycho Brahe was an astronomer and the first western scientist to describe the moon orbiting the Earth. He also lost his nose in a duel and subbed in a brass replacement because that’s a lewk.

There are some other big ones that you can point out - like Copernicus, Aristarchus and Kepler craters. All 1500+ craters on the moon are named after scientists, engineers and benefactors throughout western history (with a few arabic, indian and chinese scientists but not many - surprise. In equally surprising news, only 30 of them are named for women…)

The difference between the light and dark patches on the moon…

It would be worth dropping some knowledge here about why there are seas and an ocean on the near side. What’s the difference? Why are they there? Spoilers - there’s very few lunar maria on the far side of the moon.

The main difference is the type of rock we’re seeing. Lunar Maria are made up of basaltic rock left behind by lava pools (if you’ve ever been to Kiama you’ll have seen this type of rock around the blow hole). The lighter grey bits are called “Lunar Highlands” and they’re largely feldspar. If you want to be fancy, you could call it “anorthositic rock” but that sounds like you’re saying “an orthositic rock” and that makes ZERO sense right?

Right?

Anyway… the reason there’s more on the side nearest to Earth is that there’s a butt tonne of gravity pulling on the moon. Back when it was a pool of molten rock floating in space and the crust started to cool down, the pull of the Earth meant that the crust on the near side was heaps thinner. All of the lava started to bubble up through the cracks, fill in a bunch of craters and cool down completely to form those Lunar Maria.

The far side of the moon

The other side of the moon is… well frankly it’s super boring. The majority of it is covered in the lighter grey Lunar Highlands with a few darker Lunar Maria. We’ve labelled the Sea of Moscow for you to point out.

There’s another crater label here to talk about as well - Tereshkova Crater. This one’s named for the first woman in space - Valentina Tereshkova. She’s a Russian Cosmonaut with some potentially problematic views about Communism and Putin… but she’s a badass so we can sort-of uncancel her yeah? That’s totally how that works…

*clears throat nervously*

The Sea of Tranquillity

Remember those spoilers from before? Well we’ll finish the show back around on the Near Side of the moon and the Sea of Tranquillity.

This is an IMPORTANT location on the moon (well… important from a Western perspective) because it’s where the first humans to set foot on the moon set up camp.

Tranquillity base is the landing site and resting place for the base of the lunar lander. You’ll find the remnants of the US flag (probably bleached white by radiation by now) and dozens of foot prints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

You’ll also find a few of the 96 bags of poop that the Apollo astronauts left behind to save on fuel. Ew.

Speaking of bodily fluids, Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon sure but Aldrin was the first guy to pee. So which one wins? I think my feelings are very clear but you need to make up your own minds.

There’s a sequence we’ve programmed into the show where you can land at Tranquillity Base. Take this opportunity to point out to the audience just how big the moon really is. It takes a LONG time to zoom in.

It’s really easy, I think, to forget that it’s as big as it really is given that we can cover it over with our thumbs at night in our sky.

Space is big guys. Really big.

And that’s really all you need to know. I mean, there’s tonnes more that I think you should go and find out! Did I miss anything? Let me know down in the comments!

Science Space is a not-for-profit organisation at the University of Wollongong. The work presented here was written by me and should not be reproduced without Science Space’s permission.