Interesting facts about the moon and the earth.

The earth is our home, the planet we reside on and the earths moon is it's nearest celestial body. Our ancestors have been questioning our place in space and answering what seems like impossible questions for many, many years.

Since the birth of the creation of our solar system, the earth and the moon have developed a unique and lasting bond of rotation and gravitational pull. Dancing together in space for billions of years. Experiencing such events as the late great bombardment together of which the moon still bares the scares of today and as does the earth in fact, only due to the abundance of the life that flourishes here, we do cover it marginaly better.

Although the theories and ideas have not always been entirely accurate, for instance it was once thought that the the sun orbited the earth. Yet through out the evolution of mankind it still does seem pretty amazing just how much has been discovered in that time along with the speed and frequency we are continuing to discover.

The vastness of the universe is a concept that is as awesome for us now despite all the knowledge we have about it, as it has been for all of the generations that have come before us.

The earth and moon are both pi vital objects, essential for our continuing existence and yet in comparison with the rest of the galaxy, we are fairly insignificant. Two small neighbours in a much larger neighborhood.

Here is a little taster of facts we know about the earth and the moon.

• As the earth orbits the sun it travels at 60 kilometers a second.
• The longest an eclipse can last is seven minutes fifty eight seconds.
• It would take 80 moons to match the weight of the earth.
  
• The moons orbit is at a synchronous rotation with the earth, meaning that we only see one side of it, the side we don't see is known as the dark side of the moon.
• We see about 59% of the moon due to libration.
• Every year there are around 150 earthquakes above magnitude 6.
• 1,500 volcanoes the world over are active.
• The weight of the moon is 81 billion tons.
• Aluminium is the most abundant metal of the earths crust.
• Within our solar system, the earth is the fifth largest.
• The moon moves 3.82cm further away from us every year.
• There are on average two earthquakes, every minute somewhere on earth.
• You are ever so slightly lighter when the moon is directly over head.
• Because sun is 400 times bigger then the moon and the moon is 400 times closer to the earth, this enables us to experience a solar eclipse, where the moon and sun appear to be the same size.
• The earth is 1.3 light seconds away from the moon.
• 93 million miles/150 million kilometers is how far the earths orbit around the sun is.
• Like most woman the earth is a bit pair shaped and not completely spherical.
• When the earth was forming the moon was closer to us, it would have looked about three times as big.
• When the moon is covered by the earths shadow it is called a lunar eclipse.
• The earths equator measures 8,000 miles/12,756 kilometers.
• The moon is 2,160 miles/3,476 kilometers across.
• The Greek philosophers were the first to figure out, amongst other things:
• The cause of solar eclipse's
• The size of the earth.
• The cause of lunar eclipse's.
• The distance of the moon from us.