The Moon

The Moon

The Moon is the second largest heavenly body as viewed from Earth. That's because the Moon is so close - a mere 384,400km away. If the Moon were in an independent orbit about the Sun, we would have no problem calling it a planet. At 3750km in diameter, the Moon is almost the size of Mercury and a bit bigger than Pluto. The Moon is a desolate, hostile place with no atmosphere to speak of. Temperatures are cool: an average of -153℃ and as cold as -233℃ during a long (2 weeks!) lunar night. Yet the Moon has resources. The Moon is 40% oxygen by weight... one need only heat some moon rocks to extract this precious gas. And in 1997, NASA's Lunar Prospector found evidence of water in craters at the poles of the Moon. [TB] {EA}