When he died, NASA fulfilled his most precious wish and sent his ashes to the Moon with the Lunar Prospector in 1998. Still, hoping against hope, Shoemaker kept on dreaming that he would some day visit the Moon. Throughout his life, this remained his biggest disappointment. Shoemaker wanted to be an astronaut himself, but was turned down because of a minor medical issue. He invented the scientific research of cosmic impacts and came up with the methods and techniques that Apollo astronauts used to research the Moon. 7 The Moon Is A Burial GroundĮugene “Gene” Shoemaker, a famous astronomer and geologist, was something of a legend in his field. There is also some real trash, however, such as astronaut poop containers. Some of it is, in fact, still functional today. Most of that garbage is debris from various experiments, space probes and lunar rovers. It is estimated that there’s 181,437 kilograms (about 400,000 lbs) of man-made materials lying around the Moon.ĭon’t worry, though-it’s not as if the astronauts have been purposely littering the place and throwing sandwich wrappers and banana peels everywhere. Over time, the astronauts who visited the Moon managed to leave quite a bit of trash behind. However, this may change in the future.Įverybody knows that man has been on the Moon, but not everyone is aware that he treated the place like a picnic area. The fact that the barycenter remains inside the Earth is pretty much the only reason Earth and Moon aren’t classified as a twin planet, instead of a planet and its satellite. This point is called a barycenter, and the illusion the Moon is actually orbiting Earth comes from the fact that the barycenter is currently located inside the Earth’s crust. Instead, Earth and Moon orbit each other, around a point between them. (Pluto has a moon called Charon that is half its diameter in size, but since Pluto isn’t a real planet anymore, it doesn’t count.)īecause of its large size, the Moon doesn’t actually orbit Earth at all. Being about one-fourth of the diameter of Earth, it is easily the biggest moon in relation to its planet in our solar system.

For one, it’s far too big to be a “true” moon. Most people think the Moon is, well, a moon, but there is some talk that it should actually be classified as a planet. However, this theory is inconclusive, as the tidal forces affect the entirety of the Moon, but moonquakes are usually localized. Some researchers think they may have some link to Earth’s tidal activity, which is caused by the Moon’s pull. Earth’s earthquakes are usually caused by the movement of tectonic plates, but the Moon doesn’t have any active plate tectonics. The frightening thing about moonquakes is that we have no real idea of what causes them. According to NASA, these quakes also have the effect of making the Moon “ring like a bell.” These “shallow” moonquakes can register up to 5.5 on the Richter scale-enough to move large furniture around-and last for a remarkably long 10 minutes. The fourth one, however, can be quite unpleasant. The first three types-deep quakes, vibrations from meteorite impacts, and thermal quakes caused by the Sun’s heat-are relatively harmless. These earthquake-like tremors are called moonquakes, and there are four different kinds of them. 10 Moonquakesĭespite being a dead hunk of rock with very little geological activity, the Moon is prone to shaking fits. From its scientific strangeness to the many ways it affects our lives, the Moon is a mystery that is definitely worth a closer look.

Still, despite its relative closeness and familiarity, our satellite continues to hold many interesting secrets. The Moon is humanity’s nearest companion in our travels in space and the only celestial body that we have had the chance to actually visit.

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