The Moon

The Moon is a 4.5 billion-year-old ball of rock in space and is Earth’s only natural satellite. The most likely theory about how the Moon was formed is called the Giant Impact Hypothesis. It is thought that a planet the size of Mars collided with the Earth and the resulting debris formed the Moon. As the Moon has no atmosphere it is constantly being bombarded by meteorites and so is covered in impact craters, some billions of years old. The changing faces of the Moon that we see from day to day are known as the Moon’s phases and these are dependent on which part of the Moon is being illuminated by the Sun as it orbits the Earth. In July 1969 Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon, with the famous words “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”