Moon

The Bright Moon

The Moon is Earth’s special friend in the sky. It is our only natural satellite, meaning it is a big rock that moves around Earth. It is not very big — about one-quarter the size of Earth. But it looks very bright and beautiful at night.

The Moon is about 384,399 kilometers away from Earth. It takes the Moon about 29.5 days to walk all the way around Earth. Because of how gravity works, we only ever see one side of the Moon from Earth. This is called tidal locking.

Long ago, people looked up at the Moon and made wonderful stories about it. They used the Moon to help tell time, like counting days and months. The Moon has been very important in art, stories, and many cultures around the world.

The first people to visit the Moon were astronauts from the United States in 1969. Twelve people have walked on the Moon so far! Today, scientists are planning more trips to the Moon to learn even more.

The Moon’s surface is covered in dust and has many craters, which look like big dents. Some parts of the Moon are dark and are called maria. These are old pools of hardened lava from when the Moon had volcanoes.

The Moon’s gravity is much weaker than Earth’s — about one-sixth. This means if you jumped on the Moon, you would go much higher than you could on Earth! The Moon does not have much air, so it can get very hot during the day and very cold at night.

The Moon helps create something very important — tides. The Moon’s gravity pulls on Earth’s oceans, making bulges of water. As Earth spins, different places move through these bulges, causing the water level to rise and fall. This is why we have high tide and low tide in the oceans.