h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you've got any information you'd like to see added, please attatch it to the bottom of this forum.

Seriously! Any and all contributions are welcomed!

Thanks!


- X

Sorry to but in again, but wow! what a subject...fascinating. I don't know if you already have these details but after the Apollo missions NASA published a 'top ten' list of scientific discoveries relating to the Moon after study of the returned rock samples. Their published findings were:
1. The Moon is not a primordial object. It is an evolved terrestial planet with internal zoning similar to the Earth.
2. The Moon is ancient and still preserves an early history. (The first billion years) that must be common to all terrestial planets.
3.The youngest moon rocks are virtually as old as the oldest Earth rocks. The earliest processes and events that probably affected both planetary bodies can now only be found on the Moon
4.The Moon and Earth are genetically related and formed from different proportions of a common reservoir of materials.
5.The Moon is lifeless. It contains no living organisms, fossils or native compounds.
6.All Moon rocks originated through high temperature processes with little or no involvement with water. They are roughly divisible into three types, basalts,amorthosites and breccias.
7.Early in its history, the Moon was melted to great depths to form a magma ocean. The lunar highlands contain the remnants of early, low density rocks that floated to the surface of the magma ocean.
8. The lunar magma ocean was followed by a series of huge asteroid impacts that created basins which were later filled by lava flows.
9. The Moon is slightly asymmetrical in bulk form, possibly as a consequence of its evolution under Earth's gravitational influence. Its crust is thicker on the far side, while most volcanic eruptions and unusual mass concentrations occur on the nearside.
10. The surface of the Moon is covered by a rubble of rock fragments and dust called the lunar regolith, that contains a unique radiation history of the Sun which is of importance to understanding climate changes on Earth.


Other information/trivia .
The Moon's albido reflective value is on average 7 per cent.
The Regolith is produced by a 'gardening' effect from the continual bombardment of the surface by meteorites, micro-meteorites and radiation over the 4.7 billion years since formation.
Almost all lunar craters are impact craters. Very few are volcanic.
The moon does not have a magnetic field.
The gravitational field is variable. Thought to be due to 'Mascons'. Mass concentrations associated with the formation of the younger mare where magma has concentrated at high density in the impact basins.
In 1998 lunar probe 'Prospector' found the possibility of water located at the moons north and south poles. It most likely originating from cometry debris that is frozen in polar craters whose floors are in permanent shadow, thereby escaping vaporisation by sunlight. .
At lunar noon, temperatures climb to 225 degrees Fahrenheit. During the lunar night temperatures plunge to 243 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.
I hope this is of interest. All the best A.M.

WOW! That's a lot of stuff. I don't have time to add it at the moment, but I'll give it a go sometime before Monday night, my time!

Thanks!!

Many scientists believe it was the primordial moon's glancing blow that caused the earth's rotation speed to increase to one rotation every 24 hours (approx).

This single, unique collision is responsible for changing the course of evolution on earth by altering the length of days and nights, which effected the future development of all flora and fauna.

Who knows what systems life on earth would have developed to accomodate for the previosly longer periods of light and dark.

Plants would have to store more food just to get through the night. Humans would have had to deal with the prospect of hunting and gathering while it was still dark - or alternatively having to develop better night vision, or perhaps a keener sence of smell.

The possibilities and implications are endless.

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Quite apart from the science - imagine the collision didn't happen.

Imagine the darkness of a permanently moonless sky.

Imagine the effect on popular culture, literature, films, music........
What would make Nosferatu's castle stand out on it's desolate hilltop?
Cat Stevens would never have been followed by a Moonshadow.
Would E.T. and Elliot's airborne escape from the police have looked so dramatic?

Imagine the effect on politics.....In the 60's, what would the USA have done as a national prestige project if it had no moon to go to?

One random celestial impact has a lot to answer for!

And you're leaving out all the tidal influences as well. Without the tides, we might not ever have crawled out of the seas.

Can you have a look in the forums at the University and the fledgling Moon article? I dropped some stuff about Blue Moons and names of the moons there... before I realised it was in the process of being edited.

How do I find the page to which you are referring.

Looked in the University of Life area but couldn't find "forums" link.

Cheers
Frogmallet