The moon...?

Question

does the moon have an atmosphere?

what does the moon mainly consist of?

how did it get there?

when did it start orbiting earth

why are we in such a rush to go to it?

who first looked up and said "thats a giant lump of rock, travelling around this planet"

any answers?

Answer 1

Quite curious questions. Ummm, the origin of the moon can not be easily explained. Some will give religious answers and some  will give scientific. Personally, I have no idea because I have researched the big bang vigorously and it isn't scientifically able to happen. So I guess no one has the current knowledge of how the moon got here. Also, we aren't in a rush to get to it, we got to it many years ago. Thats all I can answer with my experience.

Answer 2

atmosphere - not exactly.  It's extremely thin so it was only recently discovered.  The entire atmosphere of the moon probably has a mass of just a few tons.

composition - rock

creation - not sure.  possibly captured by Earth, formed with it, or created when Earth collided with something

rush - it's closest

Answer 3

1. no, unless you have a party there

2. cheese

3. it annoyed someone on earth and they threw it off the planet

4. see 3 - it has been trying to get back on earth - it travels around and around and can't find a route

5. see 2, because it is made of cheese and, unknown to our govenments cheese is becoming harder and harder to find, more precioius than oil in fact.  Didn't you know that a new hybrid car has been invented which runs on cheese?

6. see 3, the mother of the person who threw it up there - she was really annoyed that it was thrown so far away...what were they to have for supper, her actual words were 'that's MY giant lump of CHEESE, travelling around this planet'

I hope this helps

Answer 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

Answer 5

atmosphere: no it does not. Although there is some new evidence of a thin atmosphere, it is not enough to even really consider it there.

composition: rock.

how did it get there: big mystery. The leading theories suggest scenarios such as a collision with Earth breaking of a piece of rock that was large enough to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium, and become a sphere.

When did it start orbiting: Well, if the theory I suggested is true, it would have started to orbit around the time it was broken off.

Race to the moon: We are no longer in a big hurry to get up there. We were during the 60's because of the space race with the Russians. We wanted to land on the moon first, and we did. Although many people assume we won every step of the space race, the Russians were to first to have a man orbit the Earth, to create an artificial satelite to orbit the Earth, and to orbit around the moon. But we won the grand prize in stepping foot on the moon first.

Besides to beat the Russians we also wanted to get there to search for traces of life, and water. Another goal of the Apollo missions was to place reflectors on the moon for later use.

We don't care about going to the moon anymore, atleast not a manned mission, because with the bad economy, on top of the dangers of getting there, and the fact that we've been there before, and did everything there is to do, so why go back when we can send probes to do the work for us?

The only reason we would consider going back to the moon is to set up a scientific exploration lab. Viewing the cosmos is a lot easier on the moon because there is no atmopshere. But other than that, taxpayers would rather see their money go towards Mars, and Europa missions.

Who noticed rock was orbiting the planet: The ancients were the first to hypothesize that this object could be made of rock. When the telescope was invented, it was confirmed. The cheese myth really was more of a joke, and the majority of people didn't take it seriously.

As for the orbit, that was discovered pretty much when the moon was discovered. Ancients could tell that the moon was orbiting around Earth, they just didn't know how, why, and where it was orbiting seeing as they didn't really know what part of Earth they were on at that time.