LIBRATION OF THE MOON: The moon makes a full revolution around the Earth in 27.32166 days. In exactly the same time, it makes a revolution around its own axis. This is not a coincidence, but is due to the influence of the Earth on its satellite. Since the period of revolution of the Moon around its axis and around the Earth is the same, the Moon must always face the Earth with one side. However, there are some inaccuracies in the rotation of the Moon and its movement around the Earth.

The rotation of the Moon around its axis occurs very evenly, but the speed of its revolution around our planet varies depending on the distance from the Earth. The minimum distance from the Moon to the Earth is 354 thousand km, the maximum distance is 406 thousand km. The point of the lunar orbit closest to the Earth is called the perigee from "peri" (peri) - around, about, (near and "re" (ge) - earth), the point of maximum removal is the apogee [from the Greek "apo" (aro) - above, above and "re". At closer distances from the Earth, the speed of the Moon's orbit increases, so its rotation around its axis is somewhat "lagging". As a result, a small part of the far side of the Moon, its eastern edge, becomes visible to us. In the second half of its Earth orbit, the Moon slows down, causing it to turn a little "hurried" on its axis, and we can see a small part of its other hemisphere from the western edge.To a person who watches the Moon through a telescope from night to night, it seems that it slowly oscillates around its axis, first for two weeks in an easterly direction, and then for the same amount in a western direction. We also oscillate for some time around the equilibrium position. In Latin, the scales are “libra” (libra), therefore, the apparent fluctuations of the Moon, due to the unevenness of its movement in orbit around the Earth with uniform rotation around its axis, are called the libration of the Moon. The librations of the Moon occur not only in the east-west direction, but also in the north-south direction, since the axis of rotation of the Moon is inclined to the plane of its orbit. Then the observer sees a small area of ​​the far side of the Moon in the regions of its north and south poles. Thanks to both types of libration, from the Earth it is possible to see (not simultaneously) almost 59% of the surface of the Moon.

GALAXY

The sun is one of many hundreds of billions of stars gathered in a giant cluster that has a lenticular shape. The diameter of this cluster is about three times its thickness. Our solar system is located in the outer thin edge of it. Stars are like separate points of light, scattered in the surrounding darkness of distant space. But if we look along the diameter of the lens of the assembled cluster, we will see an innumerable number of other star clusters that form a ribbon of shimmering soft light that stretches across the entire sky.

The ancient Greeks believed that this "path" in the sky was formed by drops of spilled milk, and called it a galaxy. "Galaktikos" (galakticos) Greek milky from "galaktos" (galaktos), which means milk. The ancient Romans called it "via lactea", which literally means the Milky Way. As soon as regular telescope surveys began, nebulous clusters were discovered among distant stars. The English astronomers father and son Herschel, as well as the French astronomer Charles Messier, were among the first to discover these objects. They were called nebulas from the Latin "nebula" (nebula) fog. This Latin word was borrowed from the Greek language. In the Greek "nephele" (nephele) also meant a cloud, fog, and the goddess of the clouds was called Nephela. Many of the discovered nebulae turned out to be dust clouds that covered some parts of our Galaxy, blocking light from them.

When observed, they looked like black objects. But many "clouds" are located far outside the galaxy and are clusters of stars as large as our own cosmic "home". They seem small only because of the gigantic distances that separate us. The closest galaxy to us is the famous Andromeda Nebula. Such distant star clusters are also called extragalactic nebulae "extra" (extra) in Latin means the prefix "outside", "above". To distinguish them from the relatively small dust formations inside our Galaxy. There are hundreds of billions of such extragalactic nebulae - galaxies, because now they speak of galaxies in the plural. Moreover, since galaxies themselves form clusters in outer space, they speak of galaxies of galaxies.

INFLUENZA

The ancients believed that the stars influence the fate of people, so there was even a whole science that was involved in determining how they do it. We are talking, of course, about astrology, the name of which comes from the Greek words "aster" (aster) - a star and "logos" (logos) - a word. In other words, an astrologer is a "talker of the stars." Usually "-ology" is an indispensable component in the names of many sciences, but astrologers have so discredited their "science" that another term had to be found for the true science of the stars: astronomy. The Greek word "nemein" (nemein) means routine, regularity. Therefore, astronomy is a science that "orders" the stars, investigating the laws of their movement, emergence and extinction. Astrologers believed that the stars radiate a mysterious force that, flowing down to Earth, controls the fate of people. In Latin, to pour, drain, penetrate - “influere” (influere), this word was used when they wanted to say that stellar power “poured” into a person. In those days, the true causes of diseases were not known, and it was quite natural to hear from a doctor that an ailment that visited a person was a consequence of the influence of the stars. Therefore, one of the most common diseases, which today we know as the flu, was called influenza (literally - influence). This name was born in Italy (it. influenca).

The Italians drew attention to the connection between malaria and swamps, but overlooked the mosquito. To them he was but a small vexatious insect; they saw the real cause in the miasma of bad air over the swamps (it was undoubtedly "heavy" due to the high humidity and gases released by decaying plants). The Italian word for something bad is “mala” (mala), so they called bad, heavy air (aria) “malaria” (malaria), which eventually became the generally accepted scientific name for the well-known disease. Today, in Russian, no one, of course, will call the flu influenza, although in English it is called that, however, in colloquial speech, it is most often reduced to a short “flu” (flu).

Perihelion

The ancient Greeks believed that celestial bodies move in orbits that are perfect circles, because the circle is an ideal closed curve, and the celestial bodies themselves are perfect. The Latin word "orbit" (orbita) means track, road, but it is formed from "orbis" (orbis) - a circle.

However, in 1609, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler proved that each planet moves around the Sun in an ellipse with the Sun at one of its foci. And if the Sun is not in the center of the circle, then the planets at some points of their orbit approach it more than at others. The closest point to the Sun in the orbit of a celestial body revolving around it is called perihelion.

In Greek, "peri-" (peri-) is a part of compound words meaning about, around, and "helios" (hellos) is the Sun, so perihelion can be translated as "near the Sun." Similarly, the Greeks began to call the point of greatest removal of a celestial body from the Sun "aphelios" (arheliqs). The prefix "apo" (aro) means far from, so this word can be translated as "far from the Sun." In the Russian transmission, the word "aphelios" turned into an aphelion: the Latin letters p and h are read side by side as "f". The elliptical orbit of the Earth is close to a perfect circle (here the Greeks were right), so the difference between the Earth's perihelion and aphelion is only 3%. Terms for celestial bodies describing orbits around other celestial bodies were formed in a similar way. So, the Moon revolves around the Earth in an elliptical orbit, while the Earth is in one of its foci. The point of closest approach of the Moon to the Earth was called the perigee "re", (ge) in Greek Earth, and the point of the greatest distance from the Earth - the apogee. Astronomers know double stars. In this case, two stars revolve in elliptical orbits around a common center of mass under the influence of gravitational forces, and the larger the mass of the satellite star, the smaller the ellipse. The point of closest approach of the revolving star to the main star is called the periastron, and the point of the greatest distance is the apoaster from the Greek. "astron" (astron) - a star.

Planet - definition

Even in ancient times, man could not help but notice that the stars occupy a permanent position in the sky. They moved only as a group and made only small movements around a certain point in the northern sky. It was very far from the points of sunrise and sunset where the sun and moon appeared and disappeared.

Every night there was an inconspicuous shift of the whole picture of the starry sky. Each star rose 4 minutes earlier and set 4 minutes earlier compared to the previous night, so in the west the stars gradually left the horizon, and new ones appeared in the east. A year later, the circle closed, and the picture was restored. However, five star-like objects were observed in the sky, which shone as brightly, if not brighter, than the stars, but did not follow the general routine. One of these objects could be located between two stars today, and move tomorrow, the next night the shift was even greater, and so on. Three such objects (we call them Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) also made a full circle in the heavens, but in a rather complicated way. And the other two (Mercury and Venus) did not depart too far from the Sun. In other words, these objects "wandered" between the stars.

The Greeks called their vagabonds "planetes" (planetes), so they called these heavenly vagabonds planets. In the Middle Ages, the Sun and the Moon were considered planets. But by the 17th century astronomers have already realized the fact that the Sun is the center of the solar system, so the planets began to be called celestial bodies that revolve around the sun. The sun lost the status of a planet, and the Earth, on the contrary, acquired it. The Moon also ceased to be a planet, because it revolves around the Earth and only goes around the Sun together with the Earth.

From this we can conclude that all these satellites, like the Moon, do not rotate directly around their axis, but after making 1 revolution around their planet, they indirectly make 1 revolution around their axis. Of the two planets that do not have satellites, Mercury and Venus, according to them, there has long been an assumption that, having made a complete revolution around the Sun, they make 1 revolution around their axis, i.e. like the moon around the earth. Mercury and Venus appear here not as other planets having satellites, but simply as satellites of the Sun. But the planets that have satellites all rotate around their axes. These facts can help astrophysicists solve the problem of three or more bodies. I think that by rejecting the erroneous concept of gravity and guided by the real world electromagnetic interaction, this problem will be solved.

The Moon is said to be a satellite of the Earth. The meaning of this lies in the fact that the Moon accompanies the Earth in her constant movement around the Sun - she accompanies her. While the Earth is moving around the Sun, the Moon is moving around our planet.

The movement of the Moon around the Earth can be generally imagined as follows: sometimes it is on the same side where the Sun is visible, and at that time it moves, as it were, towards the Earth, rushing along its path around the Sun: sometimes it passes to the other side and moves in the same direction. the direction in which our earth is also rushing. In general, the Moon accompanies our Earth. This actual motion of the Moon around the Earth can easily be noticed in a short time by any patient and attentive observer.

The proper movement of the Moon around the earth is not at all that it rises and sets, or, together with the entire starry sky, moves from east to west, from left to right. This apparent movement of the Moon is due to the daily rotation of the Earth itself, that is, for the same reason that the Sun rises and sets.

As for the proper motion of the Moon around the Earth, it affects something else: the Moon, as it were, lags behind the stars in their apparent daily motion.

Indeed, notice any stars in apparent close proximity to the Moon on this evening of your observations. Remember more precisely the position of the Moon relative to these stars. Then look at the moon in a few hours or the next evening. You will be convinced that the Moon has lagged behind the stars you have noticed. You will notice that the stars that were on the right of the Moon are now farther from the Moon, and the Moon has become closer to the stars on the left, and the closer the more time has passed.

This clearly indicates that, apparently moving from east to west for us, due to the rotation of the Earth, the Moon at the same time slowly but steadily moves around the Earth from west to east, completing a complete revolution around the Earth in about a month.

This distance is easy to imagine by comparing it with the apparent diameter of the Moon. It turns out that in one hour the Moon travels in the sky a distance approximately equal to its diameter, and in a day - an arc path equal to thirteen degrees.

the orbit of the Moon is drawn with a dotted line, that closed, almost circular path along which, at a distance of about four hundred thousand kilometers, the Moon moves around the Earth. It is not difficult to determine the length of this huge path if we know the radius of the lunar orbit. The calculation leads to the following result: the orbit of the moon is approximately two and a half million kilometers.

There is nothing easier to obtain immediately and the information we are interested in about the speed of the Moon around the Earth. But for this * we need to know more precisely the period during which the Moon will run all this huge path. Rounding up, we can equate this period to a month, that is, approximately consider it equal to seven hundred hours. By dividing the length of the orbit by 700, we can find that the Moon travels about 3,600 km in an hour, that is, about one kilometer per second.

This average speed of the Moon's movement shows that the Moon does not move so slowly around the Earth, as it may appear from observations of its displacement among the stars. On the contrary, the Moon is rapidly rushing along its orbit. But since we see the Moon at a distance of several hundred thousand kilometers, we hardly notice this rapid movement of it. Similarly, a courier train seen from a distance seems to be barely moving, while it rushes past nearby objects with extreme speed.

For more accurate calculations of the speed of the Moon, readers can use the following data.

The length of the lunar orbit is 2,414,000 km. The period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth is 27 days 7 hours. 43 min. 12 sec.

Did any of the readers think that a typo was made in the last line? Shortly before this (p. 13) we said that the cycle of the lunar phases takes 29.53 or 29% of the day, and now we indicate that the full rotation of the Moon around Earth occurs in 27 g / s of a day. If the indicated data are correct, then what is the difference? We will talk about this a little further.

Basic information about the moon

© Vladimir Kalanov,
website"Knowledge is power".

The Moon is the closest large cosmic body to the Earth. The moon is the only natural satellite of the earth. Distance from the Earth to the Moon: 384400 km.

In the middle of the surface of the Moon, facing our planet, there are large seas (dark spots).
They are areas that have been flooded with lava for a very long time.

Average distance from Earth: 384,000 km (min. 356,000 km, max. 407,000 km)
Equator diameter - 3480 km
Gravity - 1/6 of the earth
The period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth is 27.3 Earth days
The period of rotation of the Moon around its axis is 27.3 Earth days. (The period of revolution around the Earth and the period of rotation of the Moon are equal, which means that the Moon always faces the Earth on one side; both planets revolve around a common center located inside the globe, so it is generally accepted that the Moon revolves around the Earth.)
Sidereal month (phases): 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 03 seconds
Average orbital speed: 1 km/s.
The mass of the moon is 7.35 x10 22 kg. (1/81 earth mass)
Surface temperature:
- maximum: 122°C;
- minimum: -169°C.
Average density: 3.35 (g/cm³).
Atmosphere: absent;
Water: not available.

It is believed that the internal structure of the Moon is similar to the structure of the Earth. The moon has a liquid core with a diameter of about 1500 km, around which there is a mantle about 1000 km thick, and the upper layer is a crust covered on top with a layer of lunar soil. The most superficial layer of soil consists of regolith, a gray porous substance. The thickness of this layer is about six meters, and the thickness of the lunar crust is on average 60 km.

People have been observing this amazing night star for thousands of years. Every nation has songs, myths and fairy tales about the Moon. Moreover, the songs are mostly lyrical, sincere. In Russia, for example, it is impossible to meet a person who would not know the Russian folk song "The Moon Shines", and in Ukraine everyone loves the beautiful song "Nich Yaka Misyachna". However, I cannot vouch for everyone, especially young people. After all, unfortunately, there may be those who are more to the liking of the "Rolling Stones" and their fatal effects. But let's not digress from the topic.

Interest in the Moon

People have been interested in the Moon since ancient times. Already in the 7th century BC. Chinese astronomers found that the time intervals between the same phases of the moon are 29.5 days, and the length of the year is 366 days.

At about the same time in Babylon, stargazers published a kind of cuneiform book on astronomy on clay tablets, which contained information about the moon and the five planets. Surprisingly, the stargazers of Babylon already knew how to calculate the time periods between lunar eclipses.

Not much later, in the VI century BC. The Greek Pythagoras already argued that the moon does not shine by its own light, but reflects sunlight to the Earth.

Based on observations, accurate lunar calendars for various regions of the Earth have long been compiled.

Observing dark areas on the surface of the moon, the first astronomers were sure that they were seeing lakes or seas similar to those on Earth. They did not yet know that it was impossible to talk about any water, because on the surface of the Moon the temperature during the day reaches plus 122°C, and at night - minus 169°C.

Before the advent of spectral analysis, and then space rockets, the study of the Moon was essentially reduced to visual observation or, as they say now, to monitoring. The invention of the telescope expanded the possibilities of studying both the Moon and other celestial bodies. Elements of the lunar landscape, numerous craters (of various origins) and "seas" subsequently began to receive the names of prominent people, mostly scientists. On the visible side of the Moon appeared the names of scientists and thinkers of different eras and peoples: Plato and Aristotle, Pythagoras and, Darwin and Humboldt, and Amundsen, Ptolemy and Copernicus, Gauss and, Struve and Keldysh, and Lorentz and others.

In 1959, the Soviet automatic station photographed the far side of the moon. To the existing lunar riddles, another one was added: in contrast to the visible side, there are almost no dark areas of "seas" on the far side of the Moon.

The craters discovered on the far side of the Moon, at the suggestion of Soviet astronomers, were named after Jules Verne, Giordano Bruno, Edison and Maxwell, and one of the dark areas was called the Sea of ​​Moscow. The names are approved by the International Astronomical Union.

One of the craters on the visible side of the Moon is named Hevelius. This is the name of the Polish astronomer Jan Hevelius (1611-1687), who was one of the first to view the moon through a telescope. In his native city of Gdansk, Hevelius, a lawyer by training and a passionate lover of astronomy, published the most detailed atlas of the moon at that time, calling it "Selenografia". This work brought him worldwide fame. The atlas consisted of 600 folio pages and 133 engravings. Hevelius himself typed the texts, made engravings and printed the edition himself. He did not begin to guess which of the mortals is worthy and which is not worthy to imprint his name on the eternal tablet of the lunar disk. Hevelius gave earthly names to the mountains discovered on the surface of the Moon: Carpathians, Alps, Apennines, Caucasus, Riphean (i.e. Ural) mountains.

Much knowledge about the Moon has been accumulated by science. We know that the Moon shines by sunlight reflected from its surface. The moon is constantly turned to the Earth by one side, because its complete revolution around its own axis and the revolution around the Earth are the same in duration and equal to 27 Earth days and eight hours. But why, for what reason, did such synchronicity arise? This is one of the mysteries.

Moon phases

When the Moon rotates around the Earth, the lunar disk changes its position relative to the Sun. Therefore, an observer on Earth sees the Moon successively as a full bright circle, then as a crescent, becoming a thinner crescent until the crescent completely disappears from view. Then everything repeats itself: the thin crescent of the Moon reappears and increases to a crescent, and then to a full disk. The phase when the moon is not visible is called the new moon. The phase during which a thin "crescent", appearing on the right side of the lunar disk, grows to a semicircle, is called the first quarter. The illuminated part of the disk grows and captures the entire disk - the full moon phase has come. After that, the illuminated disk decreases to a semicircle (the last quarter) and continues to decrease until the narrow "crescent" on the left side of the lunar disk disappears from the field of view, i.e. the new moon comes again and everything repeats.

A complete change of phases occurs in 29.5 Earth days, i.e. within about a month. That is why in popular speech the moon is called the month.

So, there is nothing miraculous in the phenomenon of changing the phases of the moon. It is also not a miracle that the Moon does not fall to the Earth, although it experiences the powerful gravitation of the Earth. It does not fall because the gravitational force is balanced by the inertia force of the Moon's motion in orbit around the Earth. The law of universal gravitation, discovered by Isaac Newton, operates here. But... why did the movement of the Moon around the Earth, the movement of the Earth and other planets around the Sun arise, what reason, what force initially made these celestial bodies move in this way? The answer to this question must be sought in the processes that took place when the Sun and the entire solar system arose. But where can one get knowledge about what happened many billions of years ago? The human mind can look both into the unimaginably distant past and into the future. This is evidenced by the achievements of many sciences, including astronomy and astrophysics.

Landing a man on the moon

The most impressive and, without exaggeration, epochal achievements of scientific and technical thought in the 20th century were: the launch in the USSR of the first artificial satellite of the Earth on October 7, 1957, the first manned flight into space, performed by Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and the landing of a man on the moon, carried out by the United States of America July 21, 1969.

To date, 12 people have already walked on the moon (they are all US citizens), but the glory always belongs to the first. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were the first people to walk on the moon. They landed on the moon from the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which was piloted by astronaut Michael Collins. Collins was on a spacecraft that was in orbit around the moon. After completing work on the lunar surface, Armstrong and Aldrin launched from the Moon on the lunar compartment of the spacecraft and, after docking in lunar orbit, transferred to the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which then headed for Earth. On the Moon, the astronauts made scientific observations, took pictures of the surface, collected samples of lunar soil and did not forget to plant the national flag of their homeland on the Moon.

From left to right: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin ("Buzz") Aldrin.

The first astronauts showed courage and real heroism. These words are standard, but they fully apply to Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. Danger could await them at every stage of the flight: when starting from the Earth, when entering the orbit of the Moon, when landing on the Moon. And where was the guarantee that they would return from the Moon to the ship piloted by Collins, and then safely reach the Earth? But that's not all. No one knew in advance what conditions would meet people on the Moon, how their space suits would behave. The only thing that the astronauts could not be afraid of was that they would not drown in lunar dust. The Soviet automatic station "Luna-9" in 1966 landed on one of the plains of the Moon, and its instruments reported: there is no dust! By the way, the general designer of Soviet space systems, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, even earlier, in 1964, based solely on his scientific intuition, stated (and in writing) that there is no dust on the Moon. Of course, this does not mean the complete absence of any dust, but the absence of a layer of dust of a noticeable thickness. Indeed, earlier, some scientists assumed the presence on the Moon of a layer of loose dust up to 2-3 meters deep or more.

But Armstrong and Aldrin were personally convinced of the correctness of Academician S.P. Koroleva: There is no dust on the Moon. But this was already after landing, and when entering the surface of the moon, the excitement was great: Armstrong's pulse rate reached 156 beats per minute, the fact that the lunar landing took place in the "Sea of ​​​​calm" was not very reassuring.

An interesting and unexpected conclusion based on the study of the features of the surface of the Moon was made quite recently by some Russian geologists and astronomers. In their opinion, the relief of the side of the Moon facing the Earth is very similar to the surface of the Earth, as it was in the past. The general outlines of the lunar "seas" are, as it were, an imprint of the contours of the earth's continents, which they were 50 million years ago, when, by the way, almost the entire land of the Earth looked like one huge continent. It turns out that for some reason the "portrait" of the young Earth was imprinted on the surface of the Moon. This probably happened when the lunar surface was in a soft, plastic state. What was this process (if there was one, of course), as a result of which such a "photographing" of the Earth by the Moon occurred? Who will answer this question?

Dear visitors!

Forty years ago, on July 20, 1969, man stepped onto the surface of the moon for the first time. NASA's Apollo 11 spacecraft, with a crew of three astronauts (Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins), became the first to reach the Moon in the USSR-US space race.

Every month, the Moon, moving in orbit, passes approximately between the Sun and the Earth and faces the Earth with its dark side, at which time a new moon occurs. One or two days later, a narrow bright crescent of the "young" Moon appears in the western part of the sky.

The rest of the lunar disk is at this time dimly illuminated by the Earth, turned to the Moon by its daytime hemisphere; this faint glow of the moon is the so-called ashen light of the moon. After 7 days, the Moon moves away from the Sun by 90 degrees; the first quarter of the lunar cycle begins, when exactly half of the lunar disk is illuminated and the terminator, i.e., the dividing line of the light and dark sides, becomes a straight line - the diameter of the lunar disk. In the following days, the terminator becomes convex, the appearance of the Moon approaches the bright circle, and in 14-15 days the full moon occurs. Then the western edge of the moon begins to deteriorate; on the 22nd day, the last quarter is observed, when the Moon is again visible in a semicircle, but this time with a convexity facing the east. The angular distance of the Moon from the Sun decreases, it again becomes a narrowing crescent, and after 29.5 days a new moon occurs again.

The points of intersection of the orbit with the ecliptic, called the ascending and descending nodes, have uneven backward movement and make a complete revolution along the ecliptic in 6794 days (about 18.6 years), as a result of which the Moon returns to the same node after an interval of time - the so-called draconian month - shorter than sidereal and on average equal to 27.21222 days; The frequency of solar and lunar eclipses is associated with this month.

The visual magnitude (a measure of the illumination created by a celestial body) of the full moon at an average distance is - 12.7; it sends 465,000 times less light to Earth on a full moon than the Sun.

Depending on what phase the Moon is in, the amount of light decreases much faster than the area of ​​the illuminated part of the Moon, so when the Moon is in a quarter and we see half of its disk is bright, it sends to Earth not 50%, but only 8 % light from the full moon.

The color index of moonlight is +1.2, i.e., it is noticeably redder than the sun.

The moon rotates relative to the sun with a period equal to the synodic month, so the day on the moon lasts almost 15 days and the night lasts the same amount.

Not being protected by the atmosphere, the surface of the Moon heats up to + 110 ° C during the day, and cools down to -120 ° C at night, however, as radio observations have shown, these huge temperature fluctuations penetrate only a few dm deep due to the extremely weak thermal conductivity of the surface layers. For the same reason, during total lunar eclipses, the heated surface cools rapidly, although some places retain heat longer, probably due to the large heat capacity (the so-called "hot spots").

relief of the moon

Even with the naked eye, irregular darkish extended spots are visible on the Moon, which were taken for the seas: the name has been preserved, although it has been established that these formations have nothing to do with the earth's seas. Telescopic observations, initiated in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, revealed the mountainous structure of the Moon's surface.

It turned out that the seas are plains of a darker shade than other areas, sometimes called continental (or mainland), teeming with mountains, most of which are ring-shaped (craters).

Based on long-term observations, detailed maps of the Moon were compiled. The first such maps were published in 1647 by Jan Hevelius (German Johannes Hevel, Polish Jan Heweliusz,) in Danzig (modern - Gdansk, Poland). Having retained the term "seas", he also assigned names to the main lunar ranges - according to similar terrestrial formations: the Apennines, the Caucasus, the Alps.

Giovanni Batista Riccioli from Ferrara (Italy) in 1651 gave the vast dark lowlands fantastic names: Ocean of Storms, Sea of ​​Crises, Sea of ​​Tranquility, Sea of ​​Rains and so on, he called the smaller dark areas adjacent to the seas bays, for example , Rainbow Bay, and small irregular spots are swamps, such as Rot Swamp. Separate mountains, mostly ring-shaped, he named the names of prominent scientists: Copernicus, Kepler, Tycho Brahe and others.

These names have been preserved on lunar maps to this day, and many new names of prominent people, scientists of a later time have been added. The names of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin and others appeared on the maps of the far side of the Moon, compiled from observations made from space probes and artificial satellites of the Moon. Detailed and accurate maps of the Moon were made from telescopic observations in the 19th century by German astronomers Johann Heinrich Madler, Johann Schmidt and others.

The maps were compiled in an orthographic projection for the middle libration phase, i.e., approximately the same as the Moon is visible from the Earth.

At the end of the 19th century, photographic observations of the moon began. In 1896-1910, a large atlas of the moon was published by French astronomers Morris Loewy and Pierre Henri Puiseux from photographs taken at the Paris Observatory; later, a photographic album of the Moon was published by the Lick Observatory in the USA, and in the middle of the 20th century, the Dutch astronomer Gerard Copier compiled several detailed atlases of photographs of the Moon obtained with large telescopes of various astronomical observatories. With the help of modern telescopes on the Moon, you can see craters about 0.7 kilometers in size and cracks a few hundred meters wide.

Craters on the lunar surface have a different relative age: from ancient, barely distinguishable, heavily reworked formations to very clear-cut young craters, sometimes surrounded by bright "rays". At the same time, young craters overlap older ones. In some cases, the craters are cut into the surface of the lunar seas, and in others, the rocks of the seas overlap the craters. Tectonic ruptures sometimes cut through craters and seas, sometimes they themselves overlap with younger formations. The absolute age of lunar formations is known so far only at a few points.

Scientists managed to establish that the age of the youngest large craters is tens and hundreds of million years, and the bulk of large craters arose in the "pre-sea" period, i.e. 3-4 billion years ago.

Both internal forces and external influences took part in the formation of the forms of the lunar relief. Calculations of the thermal history of the Moon show that soon after its formation, the bowels were heated by radioactive heat and largely melted, which led to intense volcanism on the surface. As a result, giant lava fields and a number of volcanic craters were formed, as well as numerous cracks, ledges and more. At the same time, a huge amount of meteorites and asteroids, the remnants of a protoplanetary cloud, fell on the surface of the Moon in the early stages, during the explosions of which craters appeared - from microscopic holes to ring structures with a diameter of several tens of meters to hundreds of kilometers. Due to the lack of atmosphere and hydrosphere, a significant part of these craters has survived to this day.

Now meteorites fall on the Moon much less frequently; volcanism also largely ceased as the Moon used up a lot of thermal energy and radioactive elements were carried into the outer layers of the Moon. Residual volcanism is evidenced by the outflow of carbon-containing gases in lunar craters, the spectrograms of which were first obtained by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev.

The study of the properties of the Moon and its environment began in 1966 - the Luna-9 station was launched, transmitting panoramic images of the Moon's surface to Earth.

The Luna-10 and Luna-11 stations (1966) were engaged in the studies of the circumlunar space. Luna-10 became the first artificial satellite of the Moon.

At this time, the United States was also developing a program to explore the moon, called "Apollo" (The Apollo Program). It was the American astronauts who first set foot on the surface of the planet. On July 21, 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 lunar expedition, Neil Armstrong and his partner Edwin Eugene Aldrin spent 2.5 hours on the moon.

The next step in the exploration of the moon was the sending of radio-controlled self-propelled vehicles to the planet. In November 1970, Lunokhod-1 was delivered to the Moon, which covered a distance of 10,540 m in 11 lunar days (or 10.5 months) and transmitted a large number of panoramas, individual photographs of the Moon's surface and other scientific information. The French reflector mounted on it made it possible to measure the distance to the Moon with the help of a laser beam with an accuracy of fractions of a meter.

In February 1972, the Luna-20 station delivered to Earth samples of lunar soil, taken for the first time in a remote region of the Moon.

In February of the same year, the last manned flight to the Moon was made. The flight was carried out by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft. A total of 12 people have landed on the moon.

In January 1973, Luna-21 delivered Lunokhod-2 to Lemonier Crater (Sea of ​​Clarity) for a comprehensive study of the transition zone between the sea and the mainland. "Lunokhod-2" worked 5 lunar days (4 months), covered a distance of about 37 kilometers.

In August 1976, the Luna-24 station delivered samples of lunar soil to Earth from a depth of 120 centimeters (the samples were obtained by drilling).

Since that time, the study of the natural satellite of the Earth has practically not been carried out.

Only two decades later, in 1990, Japan sent its artificial satellite Hiten to the Moon, becoming the third "lunar power". Then there were two more American satellites - Clementine (Clementine, 1994) and Lunar Reconnaissance (Lunar Prospector, 1998). At this, flights to the moon were suspended.

On September 27, 2003, the European Space Agency launched the SMART-1 probe from the Kourou launch site (Guiana, Africa). On September 3, 2006, the probe completed its mission and made a manned fall to the lunar surface. For three years of work, the device transmitted to Earth a lot of information about the lunar surface, and also carried out high-resolution cartography of the Moon.

At present, the study of the Moon has received a new start. Earth satellite exploration programs operate in Russia, the USA, Japan, China, and India.

According to the head of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Anatoly Perminov, the concept for the development of Russian manned cosmonautics provides for a program for the exploration of the moon in 2025-2030.

Legal issues of the exploration of the moon

The legal issues of the exploration of the Moon are regulated by the “Treaty on Outer Space” (full name “Treaty on the Principles of Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies”). It was signed on January 27, 1967 in Moscow, Washington and London by the depositary states - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. On the same day, the accession to the treaty of other states began.

According to it, the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, regardless of the degree of their economic and scientific development, and space and celestial bodies are open to all states without any discrimination on the basis of equality. .

The moon, in accordance with the provisions of the "Outer Space Treaty", should be used "exclusively for peaceful purposes", any activity of a military nature is excluded on it. The list of activities prohibited on the Moon in Article IV of the Treaty includes the deployment of nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction, the establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapon, and the conduct of military maneuvers.

Private property on the moon

The sale of plots of the territory of the natural satellite of the Earth began in 1980, when the American Denis Hope discovered a California law from 1862, according to which no one's property passed into the possession of the one who first made a claim on it.

The Treaty on Outer Space, signed in 1967, stipulated that “outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation,” but there was no clause stating that a space object could not be privately privatized, which and let Hope claim ownership of the moon and all the planets in the solar system, excluding Earth.

Hope opened the Lunar Embassy in the United States and organized wholesale and retail trade in the lunar surface. He successfully runs his "moon" business, selling plots on the moon to those who wish.

To become a citizen of the moon, you need to purchase a plot, get a notarized certificate of ownership, a lunar map with the designation of the site, its description, and even the Lunar Bill of Constitutional Rights. You can apply for lunar citizenship for some money by purchasing a lunar passport.

Ownership is registered at the Lunar Embassy in Rio Vista, California, USA. The process of registration and receipt of documents takes from two to four days.

At the moment, Mr. Hope is engaged in the creation of the Lunar Republic and its promotion in the UN. The failed republic has its own national holiday - Lunar Independence Day, which is celebrated on November 22.

Currently, a standard plot on the Moon has an area of ​​1 acre (a little over 40 acres). Since 1980, about 1,300 thousand plots have been sold out of the approximately 5 million that were "cut" on the map of the illuminated side of the moon.

It is known that among the owners of the lunar sites are American presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, members of six royal families and about 500 millionaires, mostly from among Hollywood stars - Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Harrison Ford, George Lucas, Mick Jagger, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dennis Hopper and others.

Lunar representative offices were opened in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and more than 10 thousand residents of the CIS became the owners of the lunar lands. Among them are Oleg Basilashvili, Semyon Altov, Alexander Rosenbaum, Yuri Shevchuk, Oleg Garkusha, Yuri Stoyanov, Ilya Oleinikov, Ilya Lagutenko, as well as cosmonaut Viktor Afanasiev and other famous figures.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources