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The moon is a satellite that revolves around the Earth in
an oval shaped orbit. Earth's moon is smaller than the Earth. It is smaller
than the sun. It looks bigger because it is much closer to the Earth. It is
240,000 miles (384,000 kilometers) away.
Moon appears in the nighttime. The
Moon turns so slowly that a moon's day is two Earth-weeks long. Then it is
night for the next two weeks. The moon is very hot during daytime and gets
very cold at night. It appears hotter than boiling water because there is no
air to protect the moon from the hot sunlight. It gets very, very cold
during night because there is no air to hold heat on the moon. The moon has
no atmosphere, air or water, to support life. Moon can be seen clearly with
your eyes, binoculars, or a telescope.
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Many manned and unmanned spacecrafts from the United
States and Russia have landed on the moon to study its surface. The surface
of the moon has many craters caused by being hit by large meteoroids and
asteroids. The moon is much like Earth in some ways. Its rocks are similar to
Earth rocks. Lava rock from underground volcanic eruptions look like the lava
rocks found on Earth.
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Moon takes 29 1/3 days to make one orbit around the
Earth. It also takes 29 1/3 days to complete one rotation on its axis.
The phases, or changing appearance, of the Moon depends on its position in
relation to the position of the Sun. |
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| The moon is much like the Earth in some ways. Its rocks are
similar to Earth rocks. The moon has no atmosphere, air or water, to support
life. There are tall mountains and flat, dusty plains on the moon. The big holes
on the moon are called Craters, which are made when space rocks hit the moon. |
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| We always see the one side of the Moon from the Earth. You have
to go into space to see the other side. Moon does not make its own light. We can
see it because it reflects light from the sun. |
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| Every object, the Sun shines on casts its shadow. The Earth
and moon also cast their shadows on each other. Most of the times these shadows
fall on empty space. But sometimes we can see them from the Earth. As the moon
revolves around the Earth, at times the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon are in a
straight line. |
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Lunar Eclipse
The Earth blocks the sun's light falling on the Moon. The
Moon appears to be dark for a brief period, after which you would see a full
moon. This is called as "Lunar Eclipse". It occurs when the shadow of
the Earth falls on the Moon. It occurs only on a full moon day, but not on
all full moon days. |
Solar Eclipse
When the moon casts its shadow on the Earth it is called
as "Solar Eclipse". It occurs only on a new moon day, but not on all
new moon days. |
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