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

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Eleven Things That NASA Discovered About The Moon That You Never Knew
From The Anti-Gravity Handbook
Compiled By
D. Hatcher Childress

"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 Tranquillity 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 immpossible, 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