The surface of the Moon: its properties and what it tells us.

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The surface of the Moon: its properties and what it tells us

Transcript of The surface of the Moon: its properties and what it tells us.

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The surface of the Moon: its properties and what it tells us

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Crater Tycho…lunar orbiter

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Crater Copernicus from the Apollo spaceship

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The nature of the lunar craters was considered uncertain until rather late in the history of science. It was not until the early 1960s that it was considered established that they were impact craters, holes in the ground made by the explosion of a large object (rock) hitting the surface of the Moon. The diameter of the object is about 1/3 - 1/5 the diameter of the crater

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The Barringer crater: a lunar crater on the Earth

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The Apollo program and the exploration of the Moon

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The front and back side of the Moon

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/moon/vmoon1.htm

Look at Figure 9.20 of book

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The Earth from a cosmic perspective

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Human beings on an another astronomical object

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Lunar rock samples

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Lunar rocks: witnesses to the ancient history of the solar system

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Apollo landing sites

A variety of lunar geological sites

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Lunar sample: basalt

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Lunar sample

from Apollo

17: troctolite from the terrae

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The “Genesis Rock”, an anorthostie, among the oldest lunar rocks > 4 Gyr

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Ages of lunar rocks determined by radioisotope dating, measurement of

relative abundance of “parent isotope” and daughter isotope.

See chapter 7, section 7.4

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What do moon rock ages tell us about the geological history of the moon?

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The geological history of the Moon

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The Giant Impact Theory for the origin of the Moon