20 interesting facts about the moon

1- If all of your body’s molecules of DNA (the chemical which makes up your genes) were stretched out, they would reach to the Moon and back 3,000 times!
2- The expression ‘once in a blue moon’ means that something hardly ever happens.A blue moon does happen occasionally, though – It happened in 1950 when a large wildfire in Canada sent soot high up into the sky making the moon look blue.
3- February 1865 is the only month in recorded history to have had no full moon.
4- Some astronauts have suffered from an illness called lunar lung caused by breathing in moon dust.
5- It is thought that the Moon was formed when a planet collided with Earth and knocked off a huge chunk, about 4.5 billion years ago.
6- The Solar System is the collection of 9 planets that orbit the Sun with their moons and other matter. It didn’t form until nearly 10 billion years after the start of the universe.
7- Mars’ moons are shaped like potatoes!
8- Pele, the largest volcano on Jupiter’s moon, Io, erupts to heights 30 times that of Mount Everest. Gas and the other products of the eruption fall over an area the size of France.
9- The Russian spacecraft, Venera 1, was ahead of its time. It flew to the planet Venus in 1961 – seven years before Apollo 7 orbited the Moon.
10- Enceladus, a moon of the planet Saturn, has ice volcanoes that erupt water.
11- When the Moon is directly overhead, you weigh slightly less than at all other times, because of the effect of its gravity.
12- It takes 1.25 seconds for light, reflected by the Moon to reach Earth.
13- The temperature on the Moon can change 380 degrees Celsius (500 degrees Fahrenheit) from day to night, as there is no atmosphere there to trap the heat of the Sun.
14- NASA intends to build a ‘town’ on the Moon before the year 2030.
15- An astronaut standing on one of Mars’ moons would see Mars as a vast red orb – 80 times larger than a full moon looks to us.
16- An astronaut standing on one of Mars’ moons would see Mars as a vast red orb – 80 times larger than a full moon looks to us.
17- New research suggests that Earth’s moon is around 30 million years younger than was previously thought!
18- The Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of about 4 centimetres (1.6 inches) a year.
19- The Earth’s core is about the same size as the Moon.
20- The last time a human stepped on the Moon was in December 1972.
21- A laser is a very narrow beam of powerful light. It is so straight that it doesn’t spread out even over huge distances. A laser beam can be reflected off a mirror on the Moon and return back to Earth in a straight line.