Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................ 5

Distance ............................................................. 6

Composition ....................................................... 9

Phases of the Moon ........................................... 11

Important Dates ................................................. 14

Introduction

The moon, or Luna as the Romans called it and Selene or Artemis as the Greeks called it, is the second brightest object in our sky after the sun. It is 3,476 kilometers (2,160 miles) in diameter, making it one-third the size of the Earth. If the Earth were the size of a nickel, the moon would be the size of a coffee bean.

Distance

The moon is approximately 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles) away from planet Earth. This means that 30 Earth-sized planets could fit in the space between Earth and the moon! The space between the two is growing larger each year, as the moon slowly drifts further away from Earth by one inch each year.

There are three levels to the moon's structure: the core, the mantle, and the crust. The crust is the outermost part of the moon, and is made up of many different elements. The graph on the right shows the elements that the crust is made up of as well as what percentage of the crust they make up.

Composition

It takes the moon approximately 29.5 days to revolve around the Earth. During this time, the moon has varying visibility when viewed from Earth. The different types of ways the moon looks are called phases. There are four major phases of the moon, which is completed in a lunar month.

Phases of the Moon

The four major phases of the moon are as follows:

1. First Quarter
2. Full Moon
3. Third Quarter
4. New Moon

Each phase of the moon represents a different view that one can get while looking at the moon at different parts of the month.