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The
Moon is an
astronomical body that
orbits planet Earth, being Earth's only
permanent natural satellite. It is
the fifth-largest natural satellite in the
Solar System, and the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits (its
primary). Following
Jupiter's satellite
Io, the Moon is second-
densest satellite among those whose densities are known.
The Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago,
not long after Earth. There are several hypotheses for its origin; the most widely accepted explanation is that the Moon formed from the debris left over after a
giant impact between Earth and a
Mars-sized body called
Theia.
The Moon is in
synchronous rotation with Earth, always showing the same face, with its
near side marked by dark volcanic
maria that fill the spaces between the bright ancient crustal highlands and the prominent
impact craters. As seen from the Earth, it is the second-brightest regularly visible
celestial object in Earth's sky, after the Sun. Its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a
reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn
asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its regular cycle of
phases have made the Moon an influence since ancient times on
language,
calendars,
art, and
mythology. The Moon's gravitational influence produces the
ocean tides,
body tides, and the
slight lengthening of the day.
The Moon's current
orbital distance is 384,400 km (238,900 mi),
[10][11] or 1.28 light-seconds. This is about thirty times the diameter of Earth, with its
apparent size in the sky almost the same as that of the Sun, resulting in the Moon covering the Sun nearly precisely in total
solar eclipse. This matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future, because the Moon's distance from Earth is slowly increasing.
The
Soviet Union's
Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with
uncrewed spacecraft in 1959; the United States'
NASA Apollo program achieved the only crewed missions to date, beginning with the first crewed lunar orbiting mission by
Apollo 8 in 1968, and six crewed lunar landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being
Apollo 11. These missions returned
lunar rocks which have been used to develop a
geological understanding of the Moon's origin,
internal structure, and
later history. Since the
Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft.
Source: Wikipedia
The model is created at a scale of 1:1,700,000 with 2.5x vertical exaggeration. It features a built-in base, so it sits perfectly on a desk or in a frame.
Model Data Sources: NASA