11 Mysteries Of The Moon

Eleven Things That NASA Discovered About The Moon That You Never Knew

"It seems much easier to explain the nonexistence of the moon than its existence."
NASA Scientist Dr. Robin Brett

1. The Puzzle of the Moon's Origin: Scientists have generally offered three major theories to account for the moon in orbit around our planet. All three are in serious trouble, but the least likely theory emerged from the Apollo missions as the favorite theory. One theory was that the moon might have been born alongside the earth out of the same cosmic cloud of gas dust about 4.6 billion years ago. Another theory was that the moon was the earth's child, ripped out the Pacific basin, possibly. Evidence gathered by the Apollo program indicates though that the moon and the earth differ greatly in composition. Scientists now tend to lean toward the third theory- that the moon was "captured" by the earth's gravitational field and locked into orbit ages ago. Opponents of the theory point to the immensely difficult celestial mechanics involved in such a capture. All of the theories are in doubt, and none satisfactory. NASA scientist Dr. Robin Brett sums it up best: "It seems much easier to explain the nonexistence of the moon than its existence."

2. The Puzzle of the Moon's Age: Incredibly, over 99 percent of the moon rocks brought back turned out upon analysis to be older than 90 percent of the oldest rocks that can be found on earth. The first rock Neil Armstrong picked up after landing on the Sea of Tranquility turned out to be more than 3.6 billion years old. Other rocks turned out to be even older; 4.3, 4.5, 4.6, and one even alleged to be 5.3 billion years old! The oldest rocks found on earth are about 3.7 billion years old, and the area that the moon rocks came from was thought by scientists to be one of the youngest areas of the moon! Based on such evidence, some scientists have concluded that the moon was formed among the stars long before our sun was born.

3. The Puzzle Of How Moon Soil Could Be Older Than Lunar Rocks: The mystery of the age of the Moon is even more perplexing when rocks taken from the Sea of Tranquility were young compared to the soil on which they rested. Upon analysis, the soil proved to be at least a billion years older. This would appear impossible, since the soil was powdered remains of the rocks lying alongside it. Chemical analysis of the soil revealed that the lunar soil did not come from the rocks, but from somewhere else.

4. The Puzzle of Why the Moon "Rings" like a Hollow Sphere When a Large Object Hits It: During the Apollo Moon missions, ascent stages of lunar modules as well as the spent third stages of rockets crashed on the hard surface of the moon. Each time, these caused the moon, according to NASA, to "ring like a gong or a bell." On one of the Apollo 12 flights, reverberations lasted from nearly an hour to as much as four hours. NASA is reluctant to suggest that the moon may actually be hollow, but can otherwise not explain this strange fact.

5. The Puzzle of the Mystifying Maria of the Moon: The dark areas of the moon are known as maria (seas, as this is what they looked like to early astronomers- dried-up seas). Some of these maria form the familiar "man-in-the-moon" and are strangely, located almost entirely on one side of the moon. Astronauts found it extremely difficult to drill into the surface of these dark plainlike areas. Soil samples were loaded with rear metals and elements like titanium, zirconium, yttrium, and beryllium. This dumbfounded scientists because these elements require tremendous heat, approximately 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit, to melt and fuse with surrounding rock, as it had.

6. The Puzzle of the Rustproof Iron Found on the Moon: Samples brought back to earth by both Soviet and American space probes contain pure iron particles. The Soviets announced that pure iron particles brought back by remote controlled lunar probe Zond 20 have not oxidized even after several years on earth. Pure iron particles that do not rust are unheard of in the scientific world (although there is a solid iron pillar of unknown age in New Delhi, India, that has also never rusted, and no one knows why).

7. The Puzzle of the Moon's High Radioactivity: Apparently, the upper 8 miles of the moon's crust are surprisingly radioactive. When Apollo 15 astronauts used thermal equipment, they got unusually high readings, which indicated that the heat flow near the Apennine Mountains was rather hot. In fact, one lunar expert confessed: "When we saw that we said, 'My God, this place is about to melt! The core must be very hot.' " But that is the puzzle. The core is not hot at all, but cold (in fact, as was assumed, it is a hollow sphere). The amount of radioactive materials on the surface is not only "embarrassingly high" but, difficult to account for. Where did all this hot radioactive material (uranium, thorium, and potassium) come from? And if it came from the interior of the moon (unlikely), how did it get to the moon's surface?

8. The Puzzle of the Immense Clouds of Water Vapor on the Dry Moon: The few lunar excursions indicated that the moon was a very dry world. One lunar expert said that it was "a million times as dry as the Gobi Desert." The early Apollo missions did not find even the slightest trace of water. But after Apollo 15, NASA experts were stunned when a cloud of water vapor more than 100 square miles in size was detected on the moon's surface. Red-faced scientists suggested that two tiny tanks, abandoned on the moon by U.S. astronauts, had somehow ruptured. But the tanks could not have produced a cloud of such magnitude. Nor would the astronauts' urine, which had been dumped into the lunar skies, be an answer. The water vapor appears to have come from the moon's interior, according to NASA. Mists, clouds and surface changes have allegedly been seen on the moon over the years by astronomers. For instance, six astronomers in the last century have claimed to have seen a mist which obscured details in the floor of the crater Plato. Clouds on the moon are extremely odd, because the moon's supposed small gravity (one sixth of the earth's, claim many conventional scientists and NASA) could not hold an atmosphere or have any clouds on it at all.

9. The Puzzle of the Glassy Surface on the Moon: Lunar explorations have revealed that much of the moon's surface is covered with a glassy glaze, which indicates that the moon's surface has been scorched by an unknown source of intense heat. As one scientist put it, the moon is "paved with glass." The experts' analysis shows this did not result from massive meteor impacts. One explanation forwarded was that an intense solar flare, of awesome proportions, scorched the moon some 30,000 years or so ago. Scientists have remarked that the glassy glaze is not unlike that created by atomic weapons (the high radiation of the moon should also be considered in light of this theory).

10. The Puzzle of the Moon's Strange Magnetism: Early lunar tests and studies indicated that the moon had little or no magnetic field. Then lunar rocks proved upon analysis to be strongly magnetized. This was shocking to scientists who had always assumed that the rocks had "some very strange magnetic properties...which were not expected." NASA can not explain where this magnetic field came from.

11. The Puzzle of the Mysterious "Mascons" Inside the Moon: In 1968, tracking data of the lunar orbiters first indicated that massive concentrations (mascons) existed under the surface of the circular maria. NASA even reported that the gravitational pull caused by them was so pronounced that the spacecraft passing overhead dipped slightly and accelerated when flitting by the circular lunar plains, thus revealing the existence of these hidden structures, whatever they were. Scientists have calculated that they are enormous concentrations of dense, heavy matter centered like a bull's-eye under the circular maria. As one scientist put it, "No one seems to know quite what to do with them."

http://home1.gte.net/poofalow/moon11.htm

-Do all these claims hold water ? Some of these claims I had encountered in other sites, some of them I had never heard.

-It seems that The Moon is far more complex and interesting than I had
previously thought.

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-Discuss...

 

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No.

It's important to note that Robin Brett did not write the article in the OP. The presentation makes it look that way. The author is David Hatcher Childress, a noted psychoceramicist.

The author omits the currently favored explanation, the Giant Impact Hypothesis. Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis.

There is no reference to the 5.3 billion year figure. The geological community is pretty much in agreement regarding the age of the rocks brought back with the Apollo missions. Young rocks collected from maria are about 3.2 billion years old while rocks collected from the lunar highlands are up to 4.5 billion years old. There is no puzzle here. The Earth is subject to plate tectonics. The Moon is not. The challenge is explaining young moon rocks, not old ones. What explains those young rocks found in the maria is the same thing that explains the maria themselves: the Late Heavy Bombardment.

How old is this lunar rock gathered from the Sea of Tranquility and how old is this regolith ("soil") gathered from the Sea of Tranquility are two different questions. During the Late Heavy Bombardment some very big rocks bombarded the Moon. The energy from those impacts melted the lunar material in a significant area around the impact. That molten rock eventually solidified as the Moon cooled. The dating of the rocks identifies when the material solidified. The dating of the stuff that forms the rocks, the regolith, is a different issue. That molten lava didn't appear from nowhere; it was largely molten moon. That the regolith is older than the rocks is not a puzzle at all.

Here the author reveals his true psychoceramic colors. NASA is reluctant to suggest that the moon may actually be hollow because the Moon is not hollow. NASA can otherwise not explain this strange fact because the author made it up. The Moon does indeed experience moonquakes, and just as earthquakes tell us a lot about the interior of the Earth, so do moonquakes tell us a lot about the interior of the Moon. The Moon does not "ring like a hollow sphere". The Moon does ring, but it does so pretty much like a solid sphere.

The maria resulted from the Late Heavy Bombardment. See above.

More psychoceramics.

Not surprising. From http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/08sep_radioactivemoon.htm, "Out in deep space, radiation comes from all directions. On the Moon, you might expect the ground, at least, to provide some relief, with the solid body of the Moon blocking radiation from below. Not so. When galactic cosmic rays collide with particles in the lunar surface, they trigger little nuclear reactions that release yet more radiation in the form of neutrons. The lunar surface itself is radioactive!"

More invented psychoceramics.

Look at any of the Apollo pictures and ask yourself, what glassy surface is the author talking about?

It's so much fun to just make stuff up.

Mascons are indeed at the center of the maria. Some of the big rocks that plastered the Moon during the Late Heavy Bombardment were metallic asteroids. The Moon, unlike the Earth, does not have plate tectonics. Those big chunks of iron are pretty much stuck where they hit.

 

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Thanks for the answers D H

My friend have pretty big telescope, magnifying up to 300, we were watching moon few weeks ago, it was pretty chilling to look at it so close for the first time, what was more chilling was that one time when I was looking it three blacks dots moved across it, in triangle shape formation, dont know what was it, but it sure was interesting.
My friend suggested that those were satellites, maybe those were satellites, dont know,
I find it odd that three satellites would move in exact same direction with exact same speed in exact same distance from earth, its still boggling my mind, whatever were those black dots.
Well, anyway, thats was what triggered my interest to the moon on more deeply level.

"It seems much easier to explain the nonexistence of the moon than its existence."
NASA Scientist Dr. Robin Brett

That quote where kinda of out of its place in OP, but what do you think that Dr. Brett did mean by that ?

 

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-Thanks.
-Interesting, have to look on that, didnt realize that they could be satellites orbiting moon, my friend didnt refer to that option.
-I have an itch to buy my own telescope now

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Satellites orbiting the Moon is the one thing you definitely could not have seen. Think about it this way: Even Hubble is too weak to resolve the lunar landers and rovers mankind left on the Moon.

You might have seen an Earth-orbiting satellite transit the Moon. (That you saw a three of them makes that a bit suspect.) It could also have been something more down to earth such as planes or birds. It could even have been something much, much closer -- i.e., a floater in your eye.

 

-My first reaction exactly, but since I´m not familiar on these issues I couldnt rule that out. I think too that they looked too big to be that.

-I really dont know what was that I saw, I had thought about that floater thing too but it wasnt that I´m sure of, I did blink and move my eyes during watching, but the dots werent moving accordingly, those dots moved straight forward in perfect triangle formation one of them being at the point.
Those crossing the moon did take about 7 to 10 seconds, hard to say exactly how long, I was so amazed at the moment.
Planes and birds could be it, but if those were planes those must been military planes very high, and they didnt seemed birds to me but thats not out of the question either. It was just one of those things when you are sure you saw something but could not figure out what

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That picture is pretty close of the scale and accuracy to what the moon looked when I was watching it.

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And the dots was like this size relating to the picture: . . (and the space between them)

The dots were moving from left about 20 degrees above the horizontal line to the right, straight forward crossing the moon, it was total darkness,(temperature -23 C, hrrrr) all the stars glowing, we were in my rented summerhouse at countryside, great place to watch the sky because there is no light pollution.

Like I said, it was just one of things, dont want to make it any big deal about it, I was interested what could that have been what I saw, if I were a firm UFO believer I would have jumped up and down for pure joy, that much odd moment it was

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And funny thing is that it was very first time in have watched anything with such a good telescope, my friend just bought digital camera which can be installed to it, damned that he didnt have it then.

Sorry if my english dont match right at times, its just secondary language to me.

 

Well bluemoose
I have a diagram of the moons terrestrial structure and i will post it for you and give you a exsplaination. just as soon as i find a way to post the diagram on the boards. Its pretty intersting at least i think so.

DwayneD.L.Rabon

 

-Okey, we have been watching a lot satellites in summer nights since some of those are visible to the naked eye, the appear bright spots like stars.
Maybe they appear to be like black dots while on luminous back round but I cant remember seeing those dots at all after they went to dark back round.
My first guess is that they were satellites, but something is bothering me with that assertion, it just seemed wrong orbit wise but it all happened so sudden and I´m not much familiar with satellites.

 

BM, how about moon glow?

 

-What about it ?
-The Moon glow was quite beautiful on that night

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Blue, it sounds like birds. They would have been out of focus and thus appear as dots to you.
Perhaps an out-of-focus satellite could appear as three dots as well.

 

Blue, look here: http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/01/lunar-streaking-and-flashing.html

There are some vids on there that might help you.

From the vids and your info, I'd say the dots were three birds in formation.

 

I always knew that chemistry is wrong!

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hmmm, maybe its mixed with a undiscovered element, maybe its valency on the atoms on the surface of the iron is satisfied somehow?

 

-Birds very high, could be, but I doubt it, movement was so smooth and "precise", and those dots werent so much out of focus to be birds, and as for the satellites I doubt they would seen at all if not focused on them or very near to them, the focus were exactly on the surface on the moon. Those "dots" seemed to me at the time to be near moon. I do quite a lot photographing as a hobby so I´m familiar about how delicate the focusing is and how it works. It just that it was first time when using such instrument, I´m not sure about anything except what I saw.
As I have said earlier I´m not firm UFO believer, but that sight still boggles my mind, I swear that it looked liked something flying over the visible moon at very near distance of it, the moon was 3/4 parts visible then.
I was hesitating to bring it up in here because of the controversy what comes to UFOs, but thats is one explanation to me, not ruling out anything.
One thing is for sure, I will invite my friend many times to my summerhouse with hes telescope, and planning to buy my own as well

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Its quite different to actually watch the moon, planets and stars than watch photos of those.
Its a mystery to me :shrug:
I wonder has anybody here similar experiences ?

 

Thanks for the link Enmos !
I will look at those later.

 

Well, it's really interesting to figure out what it could have been, isn't it ?

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The problem with this sort of thing is that we often stylize(/make abstract) the image of what we saw in our heads, especially if what we saw all happened really quickly. Perhaps they weren't flying in perfect formation and perhaps they weren't perfect dots.. it might just be an abstraction in your mind.
Sometimes it helps to take the image of what you saw 'loosely' in your mind and then blank out for a while. Sometimes this makes the image of what you saw a bit clearer

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(I'm not a woowoo, mind you

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)

There's a vid of a satellite crossing the moon and a vid of a plane crossing the moon.
For one thing the satellite goes too fast. It also isn't exactly a dot, but more like a bright streak.
The plane crossing the moon, takes longer to cross it and is darker to the bright backdrop. Birds, of course, travel at slower speeds than an airplane. So your object taking 10 seconds to travel across the moon could have been birds judging from the speed and general appearance (as far as one can judge from someone else's observation of course).