Research work "the moon is a satellite of the earth." The moon is a natural satellite of the earth Research work the earth's satellite moon

Our planet, unlike many others, has only one natural satellite that can be observed in the sky at night - this, of course, is the Moon. If you do not take into account the Sun, then this particular object is the brightest that can be observed from Earth.

Among the other satellites of the planets, the satellite of planet Earth ranks fifth in size. It has no atmosphere, no lakes and rivers. Day and night replace each other here every two weeks, and you can observe a temperature difference of three hundred degrees. And it is always turned to us with only one side, leaving its dark reverse side in mysteries. This pale blue object in the night sky is the Moon.

The lunar surface is covered with a layer of regolith (black sandy dust), which in different areas reaches a thickness of from several meters to several dozen. Lunar sand regolith arises from the constant fall of meteorites and crushing in a state of vacuum, unprotected by cosmic rays.

The surface of the Moon is uneven with many craters of varying sizes. On the Moon there are both plains and entire mountains, lined up in a chain, the height of the mountains is up to 6 kilometers. there is an assumption that more than 900 million years ago there was volcanic activity on the Moon, this is evidenced by the found particles of soil, the formation of which could be as a result of eruptions.

The surface on the Moon itself is very dark, despite the fact that on a moonlit night we can clearly see the Moon in the night sky. The lunar surface reflects just over seven percent of the sun's rays. Even from the Earth you can observe spots on its surface, which, according to an ancient erroneous judgment, retained the name “sea”.

Moon and planet Earth

The Moon always faces planet Earth with one side. On this side visible from the Earth, most of it is occupied by flat spaces called seas. The seas on the Moon occupy about sixteen percent of the total area and are giant craters that appeared after collisions with other cosmic bodies. The other side of the Moon, hidden from Earth, is almost completely dotted with mountain ranges and craters from small to huge sizes.

The influence of the cosmic object closest to us, the Moon, also extends to the Earth. Thus, a typical example is the ebb and flow of the seas, which arise due to the gravitational attraction of the satellite.

Origin of the Moon

According to various studies, there are many differences between the Moon and Earth, primarily in chemical composition: the Moon has virtually no water, relatively low levels of volatile elements, low density compared to Earth, and a small core of iron and nickel.

Nevertheless, radiometric analysis, which determines the age of celestial objects if they contain a radioactive isotope, showed that the age of the Moon is the same as that of the Earth - 4.5 billion years. The ratio of stable oxygen isotopes of the two celestial objects coincides, despite the fact that for all studied meteorites such ratios have strong differences. This suggests that both the Moon and the Earth in the distant past were formed from the same substance, located at the same distance from the Sun in a pre-planetary cloud.

Based on the general age, the combination of similar properties with a strong difference between two close objects of the solar system, 3 hypotheses for the origin of the Moon are put forward:

• 1. Formation of both the Earth and the Moon from one pre-planetary cloud


• 2. Capture of the already formed object Moon by the Earth’s gravity


• 3. The formation of the Moon as a result of a collision with the Earth of a large space object comparable in size to the planet Mars.

The Earth's pale blue satellite, the Moon, has been studied since ancient times. For example, among the Greeks the thoughts of Archimedes on this subject are especially famous. Galileo described the Moon in detail with its characteristics and possible properties. He saw plains on the surface of the Moon that looked like “seas,” mountains and craters. And in 1651, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Riccioli created a map of the Moon, where he described in detail the lunar landscape of the surface visible from the Earth and introduced designations for many parts of the lunar relief.

In the 20th century, interest in the Moon increased with the help of new technological capabilities for exploring the Earth's satellite. So on February 3, 1966, the Soviet spacecraft Luna-9 made its first soft landing on the surface of the Moon. The next spacecraft, Luna-10, became the first artificial satellite of the Moon, and quite a short time later, on July 21, 1969, a man visited the Moon for the first time. There came a series of many discoveries in the field of selenography and selenology, which were made by Soviet scientists and their American colleagues from NASA. Then, by the end of the 20th century, interest in the Moon gradually subsided.

(Photograph of the far side of the Moon, landing of the Chang'e-4 spacecraft)

On January 3, 2019, the Chinese spacecraft Chang'e-4 successfully landed on the surface of the far side of the moon, this side is constantly facing away from the light emitted by the Earth and is invisible from the surface of the planet. For the first time, the far side of the lunar surface was photographed by the Soviet Luna-3 station on October 27, 1959, and more than half a century later, at the beginning of 2019, the Chinese Chang'e-4 spacecraft landed on the surface far from the Earth.

Colonization on the Moon
Many writers and science fiction writers, along with the planet Mars, consider the Moon as an object for future human colonization. Despite the fact that this is more like a fiction, the American agency NASA seriously thought about this issue, setting the task of developing the “Constellation” program to resettle people on the lunar surface with the construction of a real space base on the Moon and the development of “inter-Earth-lunar” space flights. However, this program was suspended by the decision of US President Barack Obama due to high funding.

Robot Avatars on the Moon
However, in 2011, NASA again proposed a new program, this time called “Avatars,” which required the development and production of robotic avatars on Earth, which would then be delivered to the Earth’s satellite the Moon in order to further simulate living in human lunar conditions with telepresence effect. That is, a person will control the robot avatar from Earth, fully dressed in a suit that will simulate his presence on the Moon as a robot avatar located in real conditions on the lunar surface.

Big Moon Illusion
When the Moon is low above the Earth's horizon, the illusion arises that its size is larger than it actually is. At the same time, the real angular size of the Moon does not change; on the contrary, the closer it is to the horizon, the angular size decreases slightly. Unfortunately, this effect is difficult to explain and most likely refers to an error in visual perception.

Are there seasons on the Moon?
Both on Earth and on any other planet, the change of seasons occurs from the inclination of its axis of rotation, while the intensity of the change of seasons depends on the location of the plane of the planet’s orbit, be it a satellite around the Sun.

The Moon has an inclination of its rotation axis to the ecliptic plane of 88.5°, almost perpendicular. Therefore, on the Moon, on the one hand, there is almost eternal day, on the other hand, almost eternal night. This means that the temperature in each part of the lunar surface is also different and practically unchanged. At the same time, there can be no talk of a change of seasons on the Moon, much more due to the simple absence of an atmosphere.

Why do dogs bark at the moon?
There is no clear explanation for this phenomenon, but most likely, according to some scientists, it is the animal’s fear of an effect similar to a Solar Eclipse that causes fear in many animals. The vision of dogs and wolves is very weak and they perceive the Moon on a cloudless night as the Sun, confusing night with day. Weak moonlight and the moon itself are perceived by them as a dim Sun, and therefore, seeing the Moon, they behave in the same way as during a Solar eclipse, howl and bark.

Lunar capitalism
In Nikolai Nosov's fairy-tale novel "Dunno on the Moon," the Moon is a satellite, possibly of artificial origin, with an entire city inside - the stronghold of the modern capitalist system. What’s interesting is that the children’s story seems not so much fantastic as it is socio-political, which does not lose its relevance in modern times, interesting for both children and adults.

Research of the Earth's natural satellite - the Moon: pre-cosmic stage, study by automatic machines and people. travels from Jules Verne, physicists and astronomers to the devices of the Luna and Surveyor series. Research of robotic lunar rovers, landing of people. Magnetic anomaly.

I. INTRODUCTION

II. Main part:

1. Stage I - pre-space research stage

2. Stage II - Automata study the moon

3. Stage III - the first people on the Moon

V. Applications

I. INTRODUCTION

Space flights have made it possible to answer many questions: what secrets does the Moon keep, the “half-blooded” part of the Earth or a “guest” from space, cold or hot, young or old, will it turn the other side towards us, what does the Moon know about the past and future of the Earth. At the same time, why was it necessary to undertake such labor-intensive, expensive and risky expeditions to the Moon and to the Moon in our time? Don't people have enough earthly concerns: saving the environment from pollution, finding deeply buried energy sources, predicting a volcanic eruption, preventing an earthquake...

But as paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, it is difficult to understand the Earth without looking at it from the outside. This is truly true - “big things are seen from a distance.” Man has always sought to understand his planet. Since that distant time when he realized that the Earth does not rest on three pillars, he has learned a lot.

Geophysics studies the interior of the earth. By using instruments to study individual physical properties of the planet - magnetism, gravity, heat, electrical conductivity - one can try to recreate its integral image. Seismic waves play a particularly important role in these studies: they, like a searchlight beam, illuminate the interior of the Earth along their path. Moreover, even with such super vision, not everything is visible. In the depths, active magmatic and tectonic processes repeatedly melted the primordial rocks. The age of the oldest samples (3.8 billion years) is almost a billion years less than the age of the Earth. Knowing what the Earth was like in the beginning means understanding its evolution, and means more reliably predicting the future.

But there is a cosmic body not so far from the Earth, the surface of which is not subject to erosion. This is the eternal and only natural satellite of the Earth - the Moon. To find on it traces of the Earth's first steps in the Universe - these hopes of scientists were not in vain.

There is a lot to be said about lunar exploration. But I would like to talk about the pre-cosmic stages of lunar exploration and the most significant research of the 20th century. Before writing this essay, I studied a lot of literature on my topic.

For example, in I. N. Galkin’s book “Geophysics of the Moon” I found material devoted to the problem of studying the structure of the lunar interior. The book is based on the material. Which was published, reported and discussed at the Moscow Soviet-American Conference on the Cosmochemistry of the Moon and Planets in 1974 and at subsequent annual lunar conferences in Houston in 1975 - 1977. A huge amount of information about the structure, composition and condition of the lunar interior has been collected here. The book is written in a popular scientific style, which makes it possible to understand the information presented in it without much difficulty. I found quite a lot of information from this book useful.

And the book by K. A. Kulikov and V. B. Gurevich “The New Look of the Old Moon” presents material about the most important scientific results of studying the Moon using space technology. The book is intended for a wide range of readers and does not require special preparation, since it is written in a fairly popular form, but based on a strictly scientific basis. This book is older than the previous one, therefore I practically did not use the material from it, but it contains very good diagrams and illustrations, some of which I presented in the appendices.

The book by F. Yu. Siegel “Journey through the interior of the planets” contains information about the achievements of geophysics in the study of the interiors of planets and satellites, space connections of geophysics, the role of gravimetry in determining the figure of the Earth, predictions of earthquakes, volcanic processes on the planets. Here, significant space is devoted to the problems of the origin of the Solar system and planets, the use of their depths for the technical needs of mankind. The book is intended for a wide audience. But for me, unfortunately, it pays little attention to the Moon, so for me this source was practically unnecessary.

The next volume of the popular children's encyclopedia “I Want to Know Everything” contains information about great astronomers, their discoveries and inventions, and how people imagined the structure of their cosmic home at different times. It is easy to find the information I am interested in in this book, because it is equipped with a subject index. The book is intended for children of primary school age, so the information in it is presented in a very accessible language, but is not as deep as my work requires.

A very fascinating book by S. N. Zigulenko “1000 mysteries of the Universe.” It contains answers to many questions, for example: how our Universe was formed, how a star differs from a planet, and many others. There is also information about lunar exploration, which I used in the abstract.

In I. N. Galkin’s book “Routes of the 20th Century” two topics are closely intertwined - a description of expeditionary geophysical research in some areas of the Earth and a presentation of facts, theories, hypotheses about the origin and further development of planets, about the complex physical and chemical processes occurring in their depths and in our time. Here we are talking about the study of the Earth's satellite - the Moon, its origin, development and current state. It was this material that was the best suited for my work and was the basis for writing the abstract.

Thus, I set myself:

the goal is to show the process of accumulating knowledge about the Moon

tasks - to study information about the Moon known in the pre-space period;

Study the exploration of the Moon with automatic machines;

Explore human exploration of the Moon in the 20th century

II. Main part

1. Ith stage - pre-space research stage

From amethyst and agate,

From smoky glass,

So amazingly sloping

And so mysteriously she floated,

It's like Moonlight Sonata

She immediately crossed our path.

A. Akhmatova

For the first time, the heroes of Homer’s “Odyssey” “got” to the moon. Since then, characters in fantasy works have flown there often and in various ways: using a hurricane and evaporating dew, a team of birds and a balloon, a gun shell and wings tied behind their backs.

The hero of the French writer Cyrano de Bergerac* reached her by throwing a large magnet, which attracted an iron chariot. And in Haydn’s opera, based on Goldoni’s story, they landed on the moon after drinking a magic drink. Jules Verne* believed that the source of movement towards the Moon should be an explosion capable of breaking the chains of gravity. And Byron* in “Don Juan” concluded: “And surely we will someday, thanks to the steam, continue our journey to the Moon” 1 . H.G. Wells assumed that the Moon was inhabited by creatures like ants.

Not only writers, but also major scientists - physicists and astronomers - created science fiction works about the Moon. Johannes Kepler* wrote a science fiction essay, “The Dream, or the Last Essay on Lunar Astronomy.” In it, the demon describes a flight to the Moon during an eclipse, when “by hiding in its shadow, you can avoid the scorching rays of the Sun.” “We demons push our bodies by force of will and then move in front of them so that no one gets hurt if they hit the Moon very strongly” 2.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky*, the father of astronautics, who laid the scientific foundations of rocket science and future interplanetary travel, wrote a series of science fiction works about the Moon. One of them (“On the Moon”) gives the following description:

“For five days we hid in the bowels of the Moon and if we came out, it was to the nearest places and for a short time... The soil cooled down and by the end of the fifth day on Earth or in the middle of the night on the Moon it had cooled down so much that we decided to take our journey across The Moon, along its mountains and valleys... The darkish huge and low spaces of the Moon are usually called seas, although it is completely wrong, since the presence of water has not been detected there. Will we not find in these “seas” and even lower places traces of water, air and organic life, which, according to some scientists, have long disappeared on the Moon?.. We deliberately, out of curiosity, ran past volcanoes along their very edge, and, looking inside craters, we saw sparkling and iridescent lava twice... Whether due to a lack of oxygen on the Moon or due to other reasons, only we came across unoxidized metals and minerals, most often aluminum” 3.

Having walked the routes of the lunar space “odyssey”, we will see where science fiction writers were right and where they were wrong.

Observations of the Moon go back to ancient times.

The periodic change of lunar phases has long been part of people’s ideas about time and became the basis of the first calendars. At sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic (30-8 thousand years BC), fragments of mammoth tusks, stones and bracelets with rhythmically repeating cuts corresponding to the 28-29-day period between full moons were found.

It was the Moon, and not the Sun, that was the first object of worship and was considered the source of life. “The Moon, with its moist, productive light, promotes the fertility of animals and the growth of plants, but its enemy, the Sun, with its destroying fire, burns all living things and makes most of the Earth uninhabitable with its heat,” 4 wrote Plutarch. During the eclipse of the moon, livestock and even people were sacrificed.

“Oh, Moon, you are the only one who sheds light, You who bring light to humanity!” 5 - inscribed on clay cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia.

The first systematic observations of the movement of the Moon in the sky were carried out 6 thousand years ago in Assyria and Babylon. Several centuries before our era, the Greeks realized that the Moon glows with reflected light and always faces the Earth with one side. Aristophanes of Samos (III century BC) was the first to determine the distance to the Moon and its dimensions, and Hipparchus (II century BC) created the first theory of its apparent motion. Many scientists, from Ptolemy (II century BC) to Tycho Brahe (XVI century), clarified the features of the Moon’s movement, remaining within the framework of empirical descriptions. The true theory of the motion of the Earth's satellite began to develop with the discovery by Kepler of the laws of planetary motions (late 16th - early 17th centuries) and Newton's discovery of the law of universal gravitation (late 17th century).

The first selenographer was the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei*. On a summer night in 1609, he pointed a homemade telescope at the Moon and was amazed to see that: “The surface of the Moon is uneven, rough, dotted with depressions and hills, just as the surface of our globe is divided into two main parts, earthly and watery, so on the lunar disk we we see a great difference: some large fields are more brilliant, others less...” 6 Dark spots on the Moon have since been called “seas”.

In the middle of the 17th century, using telescopes, sketches of the Moon were made by the Dutchman Michael Langren, the Gdansk amateur astronomer Jan Hevelius, and the Italian Giovanni Riccialli, who gave names to two hundred lunar formations.

Russian readers first saw a map of the Moon in 1740 in an appendix to Bernard Fontenelle’s book “Conversations on Many Worlds.” The church removed it from circulation and burned it, but through the efforts of M.V. Lomonosov it was republished.

For many years, astronomers used the map of Baer and Mödler, published in Germany in 1830 - 1837. and containing 7,735 details of the lunar surface. The last map, based on visual telescopic observations, was published in 1878 by the German astronomer Julius Schmidt and had 32,856 details of the lunar relief.

The combination of a telescope and a camera contributed to the rapid progress of selenography. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Photographic atlases of the Moon were published in France and the USA. In 1936, the International Astronomical Congress released a catalog including 4.5 thousand lunar formations with their exact coordinates.

In 1959 - the year of the launch of the first Soviet rocket to the Moon - a photo atlas of the Moon by J. Kuiper was published, including 280 maps of 44 areas of the Moon under various lighting conditions. Map scale - 1: 1,400,000.

The astronomical stage of studying the Moon brought a lot of important knowledge about its planetary properties, features of rotation and orbital motion, the topography of the visible side and at the same time, through observation of the Moon, some knowledge about the Earth.

“It is amazing,” wrote the French astronomer Laplace*, “that an astronomer, without leaving his observatory, but only by comparing observations of the Moon with the data of mathematical analysis, can deduce the exact size and shape of the Earth and its distance from the Sun and Moon, for which previously more difficult work was needed and long journeys (on Earth)” 7 .

Thus, we understand that even in ancient times the Moon amazed and attracted astronomers, but they knew little about it. What was known about the Moon in the pre-space period is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Planetary characteristics of the Moon

1 - Byron J. G. “Don Juan”; M.: Publishing house "Fiction", 1972, p. 755

2 - Galkin I.N. “Routes of the 20th century”, M.: Publishing house “Mysl”, 1982, p. 152

3 - Tsiolkovsky K. E. “On the Moon”, M.: Eksmo Publishing House, 1991, p. 139

4 - Kulikov K. A., Gurevich V. B. “New look of the old Moon”, M.: “Science”, 1974, p. 23

5 - Galkin I.N. “Routes of the 20th century”, M.: Publishing house “Mysl”, 1982, p. 154

6 - Zigulenko S. N. “1000 mysteries of the Universe”, M.: Publishing House “AST” and “Astrel”, 2001, p. 85

7 - Kulikov K. A., Gurevich V. B. “New look of the old Moon”, M.: “Science”, 1974, p. 27

2. II-Ouch stage - Automata study the moon

Moon and lotus...

Exudes lotus

your delicate scent

over the silence of the waters.

And the moonlight is still the same

It flows quietly.

But on the moon today

“Lunokhod”.

The first step towards the Moon was taken on January 2, 1959, when (only a year and a half after the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite), the Soviet space rocket Luna-1 (Appendices, Fig. 1), having developed a second escape velocity, broke the chains of the earth attraction. The Moon turned out to be a wonderful testing ground for studying the evolution of the Earth.

34 hours after launch, Luna-1 flashed at a distance of 6 thousand km from the surface of the Moon, becoming the first artificial planet in the Solar System. Phenomenal news was transmitted to Earth: the Moon did not have a magnetic field! Then these data were clarified. The magnetization of rocks still exists there, it’s just very small, and the regularity of the magnet, the so-called dipole, as on Earth, is not present on the Moon. In September of the same year, Luna-2 made a precise hit (“hard landing”) on the Moon, and in October, two years after the launch of the first artificial satellite, Luna-3 transmitted the first telephoto images of the invisible side of the Moon. This survey was repeated and supplemented by Zond-3 in 1965 and a series of images of the American Lunar Orbiter satellites.

Before these flights, it was reasonable to think that the other side was similar to the visible side. Imagine the surprise of astronomers when it turned out that on the other side of the Moon there were practically no plains - “seas”, there were solid mountains. As a result, a complete map and part of the globe of the Earth's natural satellite were built.

This was followed by flights to test the machine's soft landing on the lunar surface. The American Ranger spacecraft photographed the lunar landing panorama from a height of several kilometers to several hundred meters. It turned out that literally the entire surface of the Moon is dotted with small craters with a diameter of about 1 m.

At the same time, it was possible to “touch” the lunar surface only seven years after the first rocket hit the Moon; the task of landing on the Moon in the absence of a braking atmosphere turned out to be too technically difficult. The first soft landing was made by the Soviet Luna-9 machine gun, then a series of Soviet Lunas and American Surveyors.

Luna 9 has already dispelled the myth that the surface of the Moon is covered with a thick layer of dust or even that dust streams flow around it.

The density of the dust cover turned out to be 1-2 g/cm 3 , and the speed of sound waves in a layer several centimeters thick was only 40 m/s. High-resolution photographic telepanoramas of the lunar surface were obtained. Initial images of the Moon came to Earth only through radio telemetry and television channels. They became much better and more complete after processing photographs taken by the Soviet probes Zond-5 (1968) and Zond-8 (1970) returning to Earth.

Almost all planets in the solar system, except Mercury and Venus, have natural satellites. By observing their movement, astronomers know in advance by the magnitude of the moment of inertia whether the planet is homogeneous and whether its properties change significantly from the surface to the center.

The Moon has no natural satellites, but starting from Luna-10, automatic satellites periodically appeared above it, measuring the gravitational field, meteorite flux density, cosmic radiation and even the composition of rocks long before the lunar sample came under a microscope on Earth. laboratories. For example, based on the concentration of radioactive elements measured from the satellite, it was concluded that the lunar seas are composed of rocks similar to terrestrial basalts. The magnitude of the moment of inertia of the Moon, determined with the help of satellites, allowed us to think that the Moon is much less stratified compared to the Earth. This point of view was strengthened when they first astronomically calculated the average density of the Moon, and then directly measured the density of samples of the lunar crust - they turned out to be close.

Orbital measurements revealed positive anomalies in the gravitational field of the visible side - increased attraction in areas of large “seas”: Rain, Nectar, Clarity, Calm. They were called “mascons” (in English: “mass concentration”) and represent one of the unique properties of the Moon. It is possible that the mass anomalies are associated with the invasion of denser meteorite matter or with the movement of basaltic lava under the influence of gravity.

Subsequent machines on the Moon became more and more complex and “smarter”. The Luna-16 station (September 12 - 24, 1970) made a soft landing in the Sea of ​​Plenty area. The “selenologist” robot carried out complex operations: a rod with a drilling machine extended, an electric drill - a hollow cylinder with cutters at the end - plunged 250 mm into the lunar soil in six minutes, the core was packed into a sealed container of the return vehicle. The precious 100-gram cargo was safely delivered to the earthly laboratory. The samples turned out to be similar to balsats taken by the Apollo 12 crew in the Ocean of Storms at a distance of about 2,500 km from the Luna 12 landing site. This confirms the common origin of the lunar “seas”. Seventy chemical elements identified in the regolith of the Sea of ​​Plenty do not go beyond the periodic table of Mendeleev.

Regolith is a unique formation, specifically “lunar soil”, not eroded by water or vortices, but pitted by countless meteorite impacts, blown by the “solar wind” of fast-flying protons.

The second automatic geologist, Luna-20, in February 1972 delivered to Earth a soil sample from the high-mountainous “continental” region separating the “seas” of Crisis and Abundance. In contrast to the basalt composition of the “marine” sample, the continental sample consisted mainly of light light rocks rich in plagioclase, aluminum oxide and calcium and had a very low content of iron, vanadium, manganese and titanium.

The third geological machine, Luna-24, delivered to Earth in 1973 the last sample of lunar soil from the transition zone from the lunar “sea” to the continent.

As soon as the terminator - the line of day and night - crossed the Sea of ​​Clarity, a movement not intended by nature began on the lifeless surface of the Moon. A strange mechanism made of metal, glass and plastic with eight wheel-legs, a little more than a meter high and a little more than two meters long, has “woke up”. The lid opened, which also served as a solar battery. Having tasted the life-giving electric charge, the mechanism came to life, shook itself, crawled up the slope of the crater, bypassing a large stone, came out onto level ground and headed for a furrow. Invisible to the world, the earthly crew of the “Lunokhod” at the television screens and computer buttons began the fifth day of the transition from the “sea” to the continent of the Moon...

Mobile stations - lunar rovers - are an important stage in the study of the Moon. For the first time this surprise was presented by space technology on November 17, 1970, when Luna-17 gently descended into the Sea of ​​Rains. Lunokhod-1 slid down the landing stage gangway and began an unprecedented journey across the waterless lunar “sea” (Appendices, Fig. 2). He was small in stature and weighed three-quarters of a ton, and consumed no more energy than a household iron. But wheels with independent suspensions and electric motors ensured its high maneuverability and maneuverability. And six telephoto eyes inspected the route and transmitted a panorama of the surface to Earth, where the crew of the Lunokhod gained experience in controlling its movement at a distance of 400,000 km with each shift.

After some time, the Lunokhod stopped and rested, then the scientific instruments began to work. A cone with cross-shaped blades was pressed into the ground and rotated around its axis, studying the mechanical properties of the regolith.

Another device with the beautiful name “RIFMA” (X-ray isotope fluorescence analysis method) determined the relative content of chemical elements in the soil.

Lunokhod-1 explored the lunar soil for ten and a half Earth months - 10 lunar days. The eleven-kilometer track of the Lunokhod crashed into the sticky, several-centimeter-thick lunar dust. The soil was examined over an area of ​​8,000 m2, 200 panoramas and 20,000 lunar landscapes were transmitted, the strength of the soil was tested in 500 places, and its chemical composition was tested in 25 points. At the finish line, Lunokhod-1 stood in a “pose” in which a corner reflector was pointed at the Earth. With its help, scientists measured the distance between the Earth and the Moon (about 400,000 km) with an accuracy of centimeters, but also confirmed that the shores of the Atlantic are moving apart.

Two years later, on January 16, 1973, an improved brother of the family of lunar explorers, Lunokhod-2, was delivered to the Moon. His task was more difficult - to cross the sea section of the Lemonnier crater and explore the Taurus continental massif. But the crew is already experienced and the new model has more capabilities. The eyes of Lunokhod 2 were placed higher and provided greater visibility. New instruments also appeared: an astrophotometer studied the luminosity of the lunar sky, a magnetometer - the strength of the magnetic field and the residual magnetization of the soil.

The work of automatic stations on the Moon takes place in very difficult and unusual conditions for earthlings. The dawn of each new working day of the Lunokhod dispelled far from unfounded fears: would the delicate organism of the machine awaken, would it chill in the cold of the two-week lunar night?

The astrophotometer peered into the alien sky of the Moon: even during the day, in the light of the Sun, it was black, the stars, bright and unblinking, stood there almost motionless, and above the horizon shone a white-blue miracle - the Land of people, for the sake of knowledge about which such difficult experiments were undertaken.

“Lunokhod-2” woke up safely 5 times and worked hard full time. For two days he moved south, towards the mainland, then turned east, towards the meridional fault. As we moved from the “sea” to the continent, the content of chemical elements in the regolith changed: there was less iron, more aluminum and calcium. This conclusion was confirmed later when about half a ton of samples taken from nine points on the visible side of the Moon were studied in laboratories on Earth: the “seas” of the Moon are composed of basalts, the continents are composed of gabbro-anorthosyates.

The crew of Lunokhod-2 became adept at making bends and turns without slowing down; the speed at times reached almost one kilometer per hour. The all-terrain vehicle crossed craters with a diameter of several tens of meters, climbed slopes with a steepness of 25 degrees, and walked around boulders several meters in diameter. These blocks are not the result of weathering, and it was not the glacier that dragged them, but the terrible impacts of meteorites tore out tons of stones from the lunar crust. If it weren’t for the “ultra-deep drilling” of the Moon with meteorites, which is so favorable for geologists, they would have to be content with only dust and regolith, but now they have bedrock samples that reveal the secrets of the Moon’s interior.

...The “Lunokhod” was in a hurry. It was as if he felt that there was a discovery ahead, lifting the curtain on one of the main mysteries of the Moon - the paradox of the magnetic field...

Like satellites and stationary magnetometers, Lunokhod did not detect a stable dipole magnetic field on the Moon. Such as on Earth, with the north and south poles, that you can wander without fear in any thicket with a magnetic compass. There is no such field on the Moon, although in fact the magnetometer needle was not at zero. But the strength of the lunar magnet is thousands of times less than the earth’s, and in addition, the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field changes.

The absence of a magnetic dipole on the Moon can naturally be explained by the absence of the mechanism that creates it on the Earth.

But what is it? The Lunokhod continued its march, and magnetologists on Earth were numb with amazement. The remanent (paleo) magnetization of the lunar soil turned out to be disproportionately greater compared to a weak field. But it reproduces the state of the lunar magnet in those ancient times when rocks solidified from the melt.

All lunar samples brought to Earth are very ancient. Volcanologists hoped in vain to find traces of modern eruptions on the Moon. There are no rocks on the Moon (or rather, not found) that are younger than three billion years old. So long ago the outpourings of magma and volcanic eruptions stopped there. Hardening as the melt cooled, the rocks, as if on a tape recorder, recorded the former greatness of the lunar magnetic field. It was comparable to that on earth.

Three years have passed since the time when, after working for five lunar days and traveling about forty kilometers, Lunokhod-2 stood still in the Lemonnier crater as a monument to the glory of space technology of the 70s of the 20th century. Since then, heated debates have not subsided on the pages of scientific journals and in conference halls.

A lunar seismic experiment shed some light on this question.

Thus, I would like to summarize the material that was collected during the second stage of research into a table:

3. III-th stage - the first people on the moon

If you're tired, start again.

If you are exhausted, start again and again...

The first seismograph was installed in the Mare Tranquility on the visible side of the Moon on July 21, 1969. Four days earlier, the first American expedition to the Moon, consisting of Neil Armstrong*, Michael Collins* and Edwin Aldrin*, had launched from Cape Kennedy on the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

On the evening of July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 was above the far side of the Moon, the lunar compartment (it had the personal name “Eagle”) separated from the command one and began its descent.

“Eagle” hovered at a height of 30 m and smoothly descended. The probe of the lander touched the ground. 20 agonizing seconds passed in readiness for immediate takeoff, and it became clear that the ship was firmly on its “legs.”

For five hours, the astronauts put on their spacesuits and checked the engine’s life support system. And now the first traces of man are on the “dusty paths of a distant planet.” These footprints are left on the Moon forever. There are no winds or streams of water that could wash them away. A memorial plaque was also placed forever in the Sea of ​​Tranquility in memory of the fallen cosmonauts of the Earth: Yuri Gagarin, Vladimir Komarov and members of the Apollo 1 crew: Virgic Grissom, Edward White, Roger Chaffee...

A strange world surrounded the two first messengers of the Earth. No air, no water, no life. Eighty times less mass compared to the Earth does not allow the Moon to retain an atmosphere; its attraction affects less than the speed of thermal movement of gas molecules - they break off and fly into space.

The surface of the Moon, not protected, but also not changed by the atmosphere, has an appearance determined by external cosmic factors: meteorite impacts, solar “wind” and cosmic rays. A lunar day lasts almost an earthly month, so lazily the Moon turns around the Earth and itself. During the daytime, the upper few centimeters of the lunar surface warm up above the boiling point of water (+120 o C), and during the night they cool down to -150 o C (this temperature is almost half lower than at the Antarctic Vostok station - the earth's pole of cold). Such thermal overloads cause rock cracking. They are further loosened by impacts from meteorites of different sizes.

As a result, the Moon turned out to be covered with a loose layer of regolith several meters thick and on top of it with a thin layer of dust. Solid dust particles, not moistened with moisture and not cushioned with air, stick together under the influence of cosmic irradiation. They have a strange property: the soft powder stubbornly resists the deepening of the drill tube and at the same time does not hold it in a vertical position.

The astronauts were struck by the variability of the color of the surface, it depends on the height of the Sun and the direction of viewing. When the Sun is low, the surface is gloomy green, relief forms are hidden, and distance is difficult to judge. Closer to noon, the colors acquire warm brown tones, the Moon becomes “friendlier”. Armstrong and Aldrin spent about 22 hours on the surface of Selene, including two hours outside the cabin, collected 22 kg of samples and installed physical instruments: a laser reflector, a noble gas trap in the solar wind and a seismometer. After the first expedition, five more visited the Moon.

Just recently they thought that there was life on the Moon. Not only the science fiction writer H.G. Wells at the beginning of the century imagined the adventures of his heroes in the underground labyrinths of the Selenites, but also reputable scientists, shortly before the flights of the “moons” and “Apollos”, seriously discussed the possibility of the emergence of microorganisms in lunar conditions or even mistook the change in the color of the craters for the migration of hordes insects That is why the astronauts of the first three Apollo expeditions were subjected to a two-week quarantine. During this time, lunar samples, especially lunar soil - regolith, were carefully examined in microbiological laboratories, trying to revive lunar bacteria in them, or find traces of dead microbes, or graft terrestrial forms of simple life into the regolith.

But all attempts were in vain - the Moon turned out to be sterile (so the astronauts of the last three expeditions immediately fell into the arms of earthlings), not even a hint of life. But regolith, applied as a fertilizer to legumes, tomatoes, and wheat, sprouted no worse, and in one case even better, than earthly soil without this fertilizer.

They also studied the opposite question - can terrestrial bacteria survive on the surface of the Moon? Apollo 12 landed on the Moon in the Ocean of Storms, 200 m from the place where the Surveyor 2 automatic station previously operated. The astronauts found the space machine, took cassettes with long-exposed film, as well as parts of the equipment that had been exposed to a completely different type: for two and a half years, invisible tiny particles - protons flying from the Sun and from the Galaxy at supersonic speeds - were smashed against them. Under their influence, the previously white parts turned light brown, lost their former strength - the cable became brittle, and the metal parts were easily cut.

Inside the television tube, out of reach of cosmic rays, Earth's bacteria survived. But there were no microorganisms on the surface - the conditions of space irradiation were too harsh. The elements necessary for life: carbon, hydrogen, water - are found on the Moon in minute quantities, in thousandths of a percent. Moreover, for example, the bulk of this scanty water content was formed over billions of years during the interaction of the solar wind with soil matter.

It seems that the conditions for the emergence of life on the Moon never existed. Such is the strange and unusual world of Selena. This is how it is, gloomy, deserted and cold compared to the blue and white Earth.

Thus, I would like to summarize the material that was collected during the third stage.

The flight of the Apollo 11 spacecraft had as its main task the solution of engineering problems, and not scientific research on the Moon. From the point of view of solving these problems, the main achievements of the flight of the Apollo 11 spacecraft are considered to be the demonstration of the effectiveness of the adopted method of landing on the Moon and launching from the Moon (this method is considered applicable when launching from Mars), as well as demonstrating the ability of the crew to move around the Moon and conduct research in lunar conditions.

As a result of the Apollo 12 flight, the advantages of lunar exploration with the participation of astronauts were demonstrated - without their participation, it would not have been possible to install the instruments in the most suitable place and ensure their normal functioning.

A study of the parts of the Surveyor 3 apparatus dismantled by the astronauts showed that during approximately a thousand days on the Moon they were subject to very little exposure to meteoric particles. Bacteria found in the human mouth and nose were found in a piece of polystyrene foam placed in a nutrient medium. Apparently, the bacteria got into the foam during the pre-flight repair of the device with the exhaled air or saliva of one of the technicians. Thus, it turned out that, once again in a selective environment, terrestrial bacteria are capable of reproduction after almost three years in lunar conditions.

III. Conclusion

The launch of spacecraft to the Moon has brought science many new and sometimes unexpected things. Having been steadily moving away from the Earth for billions of years, the Moon has become closer and clearer to people in recent years. One can agree with the apt remark of one of the prominent selenologists: “From an astronomical object, the Moon has turned into a geophysical one.”

Research on the Moon gave scientists new important arguments, without which the hypotheses of its origin were sometimes speculative, and their success depended to a large extent on the infectious enthusiasm of the authors.

Apparently, in terms of rock composition, the Moon is more homogeneous than the Earth (although the high-latitude regions and the far side of the Moon have remained completely unexplored).

The samples studied showed that the rocks of the Moon, although different on its seas and continents, are generally reminiscent of those on Earth. There is not a single element that goes beyond the periodic table.

The curtain has been lifted on the secrets of the early youth of the Moon, the Earth and, apparently, the terrestrial planets. The most ancient crystalline sample was brought from the Moon - a piece of anorthosite that saw the Universe more than 4 billion years ago. The chemical composition of the rocks of the “seas” and “continents” was studied at nine points on the Moon. Precision instruments measured gravitational force, magnetic field strength, heat flow from the depths, monitored the features of seismic traces, and measured landforms. Physical fields testified to radial stratification and inhomogeneity of the substance and properties of the Moon.

We can say that the life of the Earth and even to a certain extent the shape of its surface are determined by internal factors, while the tectonics of the Moon is mainly of cosmic origin; most moonquakes depend on the gravitational fields of the Earth and the Sun.

It was not in vain that earthlings needed the Moon, and it was not in vain that they spent energy and money on unprecedented space flights, despite the fact that lunar minerals are useless to us.

The Moon rewarded inquisitive and brave astronauts and organizers of space flights, and with them all of humanity - a solution to a number of fundamental scientific problems has emerged. The curtain has been lifted on the mystery of the birth and first steps of the Earth and the Moon in the Universe. The oldest sample was found and the age of the Earth, Moon, and planets of the solar system was determined. The surface of the Moon, untouched by winds and waters, demonstrates the proto-relief of the Earth when there were no oceans and atmosphere and meteor showers freely rained down on the Earth. Almost devoid of internal modern processes, the Moon provides an ideal model for studying the role of external factors. The features of tidal moonquakes help to search for earthquakes of gravitational nature, despite the fact that on Earth the picture is complicated and confused by complex tectonic processes. Clarifying the role of cosmic factors in seismotectonics will help predict and prevent earthquakes.

Based on the lunar experience, a number of improvements in geophysical research methods can be outlined: the substantiation of a seismic model of a deterministic-random environment, the development of effective methods for electro-telluric sounding of the subsoil, etc.

Although the tectonic life of the Moon is not as active and complex as the life of the Earth, there are still many unresolved problems here. They could be clarified by new observations in key regions of lunar activity; It is desirable to have geophysical routes crossing the mascons, to determine the thickness of the crust on the continents and the far side, to illuminate the transition zone between the lithosphere and asthenosphere, to confirm or refute the effect of the inner core of the Moon. We can hope that we will continue to witness new geophysical experiments on the Earth's satellite.

Current and future missions of spacecraft to the planets of the solar system will complement and clarify the chapters of the exciting book of nature, important pages of which were read during the lunar space odyssey.

1. Galkin I. N. “Geophysics of the Moon”, M.: Publishing house “Nauka”, 1978.

2. Galkin I. N. “Routes of the 20th century”, M.: Publishing house “Mysl”, 1982.

3. Gurshtein A. A. “Man and the Universe”, M.: Publishing house PKO “Cartography” and JSC “Buklet”, 1992.

4. Siegel F. Yu. “Travel through the bowels of the planets”, M.: Publishing house “Nedra”, 1988.

5. Zigulenko S. N. “1000 mysteries of the Universe”, M.: Publishing House “AST” and “Astrel”, 2001.

6. Kulikov K. A., Gurevich V. B. “New look of the old Moon”, M.: “Nauka”, 1974.

7. Umanskaya Zh. V. “I want to know everything. Labyrinths of Space”, M.: Publishing House “AST”, 2001.

"The Moon - Natural Satellite of the Earth"

1. Introduction

2.1. Mythological history of the moon

2.2. Origin of the Moon

3.1. Lunar eclipses

3.2. Eclipses in former times

4.1. Moon Shape

4.2. Surface of the Moon

4.3. Relief of the lunar surface

4.4. Lunar soil.

4.5. Internal structure of the Moon

5.1. Moon phases.

5.2. A new stage in lunar exploration.

5.3. Magnetism of the Moon.

6.1. Tidal Power Research

7.1. Conclusion.

1. Introduction .

The Moon is the Earth's natural satellite and the brightest object in the night sky. On the Moon there is no atmosphere familiar to us, there are no rivers and lakes, vegetation and living organisms. The gravity on the Moon is six times less than on Earth. Day and night with temperature changes of up to 300 degrees last for two weeks. And yet, the Moon is increasingly attracting earthlings with the opportunity to use its unique conditions and resources.

The extraction of natural reserves on Earth becomes more difficult every year. According to scientists, in the near future humanity will enter a difficult period. The Earth's habitat will exhaust its resources, so it is now necessary to begin to develop the resources of other planets and satellites. The Moon, as the closest celestial body to us, will become the first object for extraterrestrial industrial production. The creation of a lunar base, and then a network of bases, is planned in the coming decades. Oxygen, hydrogen, iron, aluminum, titanium, silicon and other useful elements can be extracted from lunar rocks. Lunar soil is an excellent raw material for obtaining various building materials, as well as for extracting the helium-3 isotope, which is capable of providing Earth’s power plants with safe and environmentally friendly nuclear fuel. The moon will be used for unique scientific research and observations. By studying the lunar surface, scientists can “look” into the very ancient period of our own planet, since the peculiarities of the development of the Moon ensured the preservation of the surface topography for billions of years. In addition, the Moon will serve as an experimental base for testing space technologies, and in the future it will be used as a key transport hub for interplanetary communications.

The Moon, the only natural satellite of the Earth and the closest celestial body to us; the average distance to the Moon is 384,000 kilometers.

The Moon moves around the Earth at an average speed of 1.02 km/sec in a roughly elliptical orbit in the same direction in which the vast majority of other bodies in the Solar System move, that is, counterclockwise when looking at the Moon's orbit from the North Pole. The semimajor axis of the Moon's orbit, equal to the average distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon, is 384,400 km (approximately 60 Earth radii).

Since the mass of the Moon is relatively small, it has practically no dense gaseous shell - an atmosphere. Gases are freely dispersed in the surrounding space. Therefore, the surface of the Moon is illuminated by direct sunlight. The shadows from the uneven terrain here are very deep and black, since there is no diffused light. And the Sun will look much brighter from the lunar surface. The Moon's tenuous gas envelope of hydrogen, helium, neon and argon is ten trillion times less dense than our atmosphere, but a thousand times greater than the number of gas molecules in the vacuum of space. Since the Moon does not have a dense protective shell of gas, very large temperature changes occur on its surface during the day. Solar radiation is absorbed by the lunar surface, which weakly reflects light rays.

Due to the ellipticity of the orbit and disturbances, the distance to the Moon varies between 356,400 and 406,800 km. The period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth, the so-called sidereal (stellar) month, is 27.32166 days, but is subject to slight fluctuations and a very small secular reduction. The movement of the Moon around the Earth is very complex, and its study is one of the most difficult problems of celestial mechanics. Elliptical motion is only a rough approximation; many disturbances caused by the attraction of the Sun and planets are superimposed on it. The most important of these disturbances, or inequalities, were discovered from observations long before their theoretical derivation from the law of universal gravitation. The attraction of the Moon by the Sun is 2.2 times stronger than by the Earth, so, strictly speaking, one should consider the movement of the Moon around the Sun and the disturbance of this movement by the Earth. However, since the researcher is interested in the movement of the Moon as seen from the Earth, the gravitational theory, which was developed by many major scientists, starting with I. Newton, considers the movement of the Moon around the Earth. In the 20th century, they use the theory of the American mathematician J. Hill, on the basis of which the American astronomer E. Brown calculated (1919) mathematically the series and compiled tables containing the latitude, longitude and parallax of the Moon. The argument is time.

The plane of the Moon’s orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at an angle of 5*8”43”, subject to slight fluctuations. The points of intersection of the orbit with the ecliptic are called the ascending and descending nodes, have an uneven retrograde motion and make a full revolution along the ecliptic in 6794 days (about 18 years), as a result of which the Moon returns to the same node after an interval of time - the so-called draconic month, - shorter than the sidereal one and on average equal to 27.21222 days, the frequency of solar and lunar eclipses is associated with this month.

The Moon rotates around an axis inclined to the ecliptic plane at an angle of 88°28", with a period exactly equal to the sidereal month, as a result of which it is always turned to the Earth with the same side. However, the combination of uniform rotation with uneven orbital movement causes small periodic deviations from a constant direction to the Earth, reaching 7° 54" in longitude, and the inclination of the Moon's rotation axis to the plane of its orbit causes deviations of up to 6°50" in latitude, as a result of which up to 59% of the entire surface of the Moon can be seen from the Earth at different times (although areas near the edges of the lunar disk are visible only from a strong perspective); such deviations are called libration of the Moon. The planes of the Moon's equator, ecliptic and lunar orbit always intersect along one straight line (Cassini's law).

The movement of the Moon is divided into four lunar months.

29, 53059 days SYNODICAL (from the word synodion - meeting).

27, 55455 days ANOMALITIC (the angular distance of the Moon from its perigee was called an anomaly).

27 , 32166 days SIDERIC (siderium - starry)

27, 21222 days DRACONIC (orbital nodes are indicated by an icon that looks like a dragon).

Target: Find out as much as possible about the Earth's only natural satellite - the Moon. About its benefits and significance in people's lives about origin, history, movement, etc.

Tasks:

1. Learn about the history of the Moon.

2. Learn about lunar eclipses.

3. Learn about the structure of the Moon.

4. Learn about new lunar research.

5. Research work.

2.1. Mythological history of the Moon.

The moon in Roman mythology is the goddess of night light. The moon had several sanctuaries, one together with the sun god. In Egyptian mythology, the moon goddess Tefnut and her sister Shu, one of the incarnations of the solar principle, were twins. In Indo-European and Baltic mythology, the motif of the month courting the sun and their wedding is widespread: after the wedding, the month leaves the sun, for which the thunder god takes revenge on him and cuts the month in half. In another mythology, the month, who lived in the sky with his wife the sun, came to earth to see how people lived. On earth, the month was chased by Hosedem (an evil female mythological creature). The moon, hastily returning to the sun, only half managed to enter its chum. The sun grabbed him by one half, and Hosedem by the other and began to pull him in different directions until they tore him in half. The sun then tried to revive the month, which was left without the left half and thus without a heart, tried to make a heart for it from coal, rocked it in a cradle (a shamanic way of resurrecting a person), but everything was in vain. Then the sun commanded the month that it should shine at night with its remaining half. In Armenian mythology, Lusin (“moon”), a young man asked his mother, who was holding the dough, for a bun. The angry mother slapped Lusin in the face, from which he flew into the sky. Traces of the test are still visible on his face. According to popular beliefs, the phases of the moon are associated with the cycles of the life of King Lusin: the new moon with his youth, the full moon with maturity; when the moon wanes and a crescent appears, Lusin becomes old, and then goes to heaven (dies). He returns from paradise reborn.

There are also myths about the origin of the moon from parts of the body (most often from the left and right eyes). Most peoples of the world have special Lunar myths that explain the appearance of spots on the moon, most often by the fact that there is a special person there (“moon man” or “moon woman”). Many peoples attach special importance to the moon deity, believing that it provides the necessary elements for all living things.

2.2. Origin of the Moon.

The origin of the Moon has not yet been definitively established. Three different hypotheses have been most developed. At the end of the 19th century. J. Darwin put forward a hypothesis according to which the Moon and the Earth originally constituted one common molten mass, the speed of rotation of which increased as it cooled and contracted; as a result, this mass was torn into two parts: a larger one - the Earth and a smaller one - the Moon. This hypothesis explains the low density of the Moon, formed from the outer layers of the original mass. However, it encounters serious objections from the point of view of the mechanism of such a process; In addition, there are significant geochemical differences between the rocks of the Earth's shell and the lunar rocks.

The capture hypothesis, developed by the German scientist K. Weizsäcker, the Swedish scientist H. Alfven and the American scientist G. Urey, suggests that the Moon was originally a small planet, which, when passing near the Earth, as a result of the influence of the latter’s gravity, turned into a satellite of the Earth. The probability of such an event is very low, and, in addition, in this case one would expect a greater difference between the earth and lunar rocks.

According to the third hypothesis, developed by Soviet scientists - O. Yu. Schmidt and his followers in the middle of the 20th century, the Moon and Earth were formed simultaneously by combining and compacting a large swarm of small particles. But the Moon as a whole has a lower density than the Earth, so the substance of the protoplanetary cloud should have divided with the concentration of heavy elements in the Earth. In this regard, the assumption arose that the Earth, surrounded by a powerful atmosphere enriched with relatively volatile silicates, began to form first; with subsequent cooling, the substance of this atmosphere condensed into a ring of planetesimals, from which the Moon was formed. The last hypothesis at the current level of knowledge (70s of the 20th century) seems to be the most preferable. Not long ago, a fourth theory arose, which is now accepted as the most plausible. This is the giant impact hypothesis. The basic idea is that when the planets we see now were just forming, a celestial body the size of Mars crashed into the young Earth with tremendous force at a glancing angle. In this case, the lighter substances of the outer layers of the Earth would have to break away from it and scatter in space, forming a ring of fragments around the Earth, while the core of the Earth, consisting of iron, would remain intact. Eventually, this ring of debris fused together to form the Moon. The giant impact theory explains why the Earth contains large amounts of iron, but the Moon has almost none. In addition, from the material that was supposed to turn into the Moon, as a result of this collision, many different gases were released - in particular oxygen.

3.1. Lunar eclipses.

Due to the fact that the Moon, revolving around the Earth, is sometimes on the same line Earth-Moon-Sun, solar or lunar eclipses occur - the most interesting and spectacular natural phenomena that caused fear in past centuries, since people did not understand what was happening. It seemed to them that some invisible black dragon was devouring the Sun and people could remain in eternal darkness. Therefore, chroniclers of all nations carefully recorded information about eclipses in their chronicles. So the chronicler Cyril from the Novgorod Anthony Monastery wrote down on August 11, 1124: “Before evening the Sun began to wane, and that was all. Oh great is the fear and darkness that will exist!” History has brought to us an incident when a solar eclipse terrified the fighting Indians and Medes. In 603 BC. in the territory of modern Turkey and Iran. The warriors, in fear, threw down their weapons and stopped fighting, after which, frightened by the eclipse, they made peace and did not fight with each other for a long time. Solar eclipses occur only on a new moon, when the Moon passes neither lower nor higher, but just across the solar disk and, like a giant curtain, blocks the solar disk, “blocking the path of the Sun.” But eclipses are visible differently in different places; in some places the Sun is completely obscured - a total eclipse, in others - a partial eclipse. The essence of the phenomenon is that the Earth and the Moon, illuminated by the Sun, cast shadow ends (converging) and shadow ends (diverging). When the Moon falls in line with the Sun and the Earth and is between them, the lunar shadow moves across the Earth from west to east. The diameter of the full lunar shadow does not exceed 250 km, so at the same time the solar eclipse is visible only on a small area of ​​the Earth. Where the penumbra of the Moon falls on the Earth, an incomplete eclipse of the Sun is observed. The distance between the Sun and the Earth is not always the same: in winter in the northern hemisphere the Earth is closer to the Sun, and in summer further. The Moon, revolving around the Earth, also passes at different distances - sometimes closer, sometimes further from it. In the case when the Moon lags further from the Earth and cannot completely block the disk of the Sun, observers see the sparkling edge of the solar disk around the black Moon - a beautiful annular eclipse of the Sun occurs. When ancient observers accumulated records of eclipses over several centuries, they noticed that eclipses recurred every 18 years and 11 and a third days. The Egyptians called this period “saros”, which means “repetition”. However, to determine where the eclipse will be visible, it is, of course, necessary to make more complex calculations. During a full moon, the Moon sometimes falls completely or partially into the earth's shadow, and we see, respectively, a total or partial eclipse of the Moon. The Moon is much smaller than the Earth, so the eclipse lasts up to 1 hour. 40min. Moreover, even during a total lunar eclipse, the Moon remains visible, but turns purple, which causes unpleasant sensations. In the old days, eclipses of the Moon were feared as a terrible omen; they believed that “the month is bleeding.” The sun's rays, refracted in the Earth's atmosphere, fall into the cone of the earth's shadow. At the same time, the atmosphere actively absorbs blue and adjacent rays of the solar spectrum, and predominantly red rays are transmitted into the shadow cone, which are absorbed weaker, and they give the Moon an ominous reddish color. In general, lunar eclipses are a rather rare natural phenomenon. It would seem that lunar eclipses should be observed monthly - on every full moon. But that doesn't really happen. The Moon slips either under or above the Earth's shadow, and on a new moon the Moon's shadow usually passes by the Earth, and then eclipses also fail. Therefore, eclipses are not that frequent.

Diagram of a total lunar eclipse.

3.2. Eclipses in former times.

In ancient times, people were extremely interested in eclipses of the Sun and Moon. The philosophers of Ancient Greece were convinced that the Earth was a sphere because they noticed that the shadow of the Earth falling on the Moon was always in the shape of a circle. Moreover, they calculated that the Earth is about three times larger than the Moon, simply based on the duration of eclipses. Archaeological evidence suggests that many ancient civilizations attempted to predict eclipses. Observations at Stonehenge, in southern England, may have enabled Late Stone Age people 4,000 years ago to predict certain eclipses. They knew how to calculate the arrival time of the summer and winter solstices. In Central America 1,000 years ago, Mayan astronomers were able to predict eclipses by making a long series of observations and looking for repeating combinations of factors. Almost identical eclipses occur every 54 years and 34 days.

4.4. How often can we see eclipses?

Although the Moon orbits the Earth once a month, eclipses cannot occur monthly due to the fact that the plane of the Moon's orbit is tilted relative to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. At most, seven eclipses can occur in a year, of which two or three must be lunar. Solar eclipses occur only at new moon, when the Moon is exactly between the Earth and the Sun. Lunar eclipses always occur during the full moon, when the Earth is between the Earth and the Sun. We can hope to see 40 lunar eclipses in our lifetime (assuming the skies are clear). Observing solar eclipses is more difficult due to the narrowness of the solar eclipse band.

4.1. Moon Shape

The shape of the Moon is very close to a sphere with a radius of 1737 km, which is equal to 0.2724 of the equatorial radius of the Earth. The surface area of ​​the Moon is 3.8 * 107 sq. km., and the volume is 2.2 * 1025 cm3. A more detailed determination of the Moon’s figure is complicated by the fact that on the Moon, due to the absence of oceans, there is no clearly defined level surface in relation to which heights and depths could be determined; in addition, since the Moon is turned to the Earth with one side, it seems possible to measure the radii of points on the surface of the visible hemisphere of the Moon from the Earth (except for points at the very edge of the lunar disk) only on the basis of a weak stereoscopic effect caused by libration. The study of libration made it possible to estimate the difference between the major semi-axes of the Moon's ellipsoid. The polar axis is less than the equatorial axis, directed towards the Earth, by about 700 m and less than the equatorial axis, perpendicular to the direction to the Earth, by 400 m. Thus, the Moon, under the influence of tidal forces, is slightly elongated towards the Earth. The mass of the Moon is most accurately determined from observations of its artificial satellites. It is 81 times less than the mass of the earth, which corresponds to 7.35 * 1025 g. The average density of the Moon is 3.34 g. cm3 (0.61 the average density of the Earth). The acceleration of gravity on the surface of the Moon is 6 times greater than on Earth, amounts to 162.3 cm sec and decreases by 0.187 cm sec2 with an increase of 1 kilometer. The first escape velocity is 1680 m. sec, the second is 2375 m. sec. Due to the low gravity, the Moon was unable to maintain a gas shell around itself, as well as water in a free state.

4.2. Surface of the Moon

The Moon's surface is quite dark, with an albedo of 0.073, meaning it reflects on average only 7.3% of the Sun's light rays. The visual magnitude of the full Moon at average distance is - 12.7; It sends 465,000 times less light to Earth during a full moon than the Sun. Depending on the phases, this amount of light decreases much faster than the area of ​​the illuminated part of the Moon, so that when the Moon is at quarter and we see half of its disk bright, it sends us not 50%, but only 8% of the light of the full Moon. the color of moonlight is + 1.2, that is, it is noticeably redder than sunlight. The Moon rotates relative to the Sun with a period equal to a synodic month, so a day on the Moon lasts almost 1.5 days and the night lasts the same amount. Not being protected by the atmosphere, the surface of the Moon heats up to + 110 ° C during the day, and cools down to -120 ° C at night, however, as radio observations have shown, these huge temperature fluctuations penetrate only a few decimeters deep due to the extremely weak thermal conductivity of the surface layers. For the same reason, during total lunar eclipses, the heated surface cools quickly, although some places take longer

Even with the naked eye, irregular extended darkish spots are visible on the Moon, which were mistaken for seas; the name was preserved, although it was established that these formations have nothing in common with the earth’s seas. Telescopic observations, which were started in 1610 by Galileo, made it possible to discover the mountainous structure of the surface of the Moon. It turns out that the seas are plains of a darker hue than other areas, sometimes called continental (or mainland), replete with mountains, most of which are ring-shaped (craters). Based on many years of observations, detailed maps of the Moon were compiled. The first such maps were published in 1647 by J. Hevelius in the Lancet (Gdansk). Retaining the term “seas,” he also assigned names to the main lunar ridges - based on similar terrestrial formations: the Apennines, the Caucasus, the Alps. G. Riccioli in 1651 gave fantastic names to the vast dark lowlands: Ocean of Storms, Sea of ​​Crises, Sea of ​​Tranquility, Sea of ​​Rains, and so on; he called dark areas less adjacent to the seas bays, for example, Rainbow Bay, and small irregular spots - swamps, for example Swamp of Rot. He named individual mountains, mostly ring-shaped, after prominent scientists: Copernicus, Kepler, Tycho Brahe and others. These names have been preserved on lunar maps to this day, and many new names of outstanding people and scientists of later times have been added. On maps of the far side of the Moon, compiled from observations made from space probes and artificial satellites of the Moon, the names of K. E. Tsiolkovsky, S. P. Korolev, Yu. A. Gagarin and others appeared. Detailed and accurate maps of the Moon were compiled from telescopic observations in the 19th century by German astronomers I. Mädler, J. Schmidt and others. The maps were compiled in an orthographic projection for the middle phase of libration, that is, approximately as the Moon is visible from the Earth. At the end of the 19th century, photographic observations of the Moon began.

In 1896-1910, a large atlas of the Moon was published by French astronomers M. Levy and P. Puzet based on photographs taken at the Paris Observatory; later, a photographic album of the Moon was published by the Lick Observatory in the USA, and in the mid-20th century, J. Kuiper (USA) compiled several detailed atlases of photographs of the Moon taken on large telescopes of various astronomical observatories. With the help of modern telescopes, craters about 0.7 kilometers in size and cracks a few hundred meters wide can be seen, but not seen, on the Moon.

Most of the seas and craters on the visible side were named by the Italian astronomer Ricciolli in the mid-seventeenth century in honor of astronomers, philosophers and other scientists. After photographing the far side of the Moon, new names appeared on maps of the Moon. Titles are assigned posthumously. The exception is 12 crater names in honor of Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts. All new names are approved by the International Astronomical Union.

The relief of the lunar surface was mainly clarified as a result of many years of telescopic observations. The “lunar seas,” occupying about 40% of the visible surface of the Moon, are flat lowlands intersected by cracks and low winding ridges; There are relatively few large craters in the seas. Many seas are surrounded by concentric ring ridges. The remaining, lighter surface is covered with numerous craters, ring-shaped ridges, grooves, and so on. Craters smaller than 15-20 kilometers have a simple cup shape; larger craters (up to 200 kilometers) consist of a rounded shaft with steep internal slopes, have a relatively flat bottom, deeper than the surrounding terrain, often with a central hill. The heights of mountains above the surrounding area are determined by the length of shadows on the lunar surface or photometrically. In this way, hypsometric maps were compiled on a scale of 1: 1,000,000 for most of the visible side. However, absolute heights, the distances of points on the surface of the Moon from the center of the figure or mass of the Moon are determined very uncertainly, and hypsometric maps based on them give only a general idea of ​​the relief of the Moon. The relief of the lunar marginal zone, which, depending on the libration phase, limits the lunar disk, has been studied in much more detail and more accurately. For this zone, the German scientist F. Hein, the Soviet scientist A. A. Nefediev, and the American scientist C. Watts compiled hypsometric maps, which are used to take into account the unevenness of the edge of the Moon during observations in order to determine the coordinates of the Moon (such observations are made with meridian circles and from photographs of the Moon against the background of surrounding stars, as well as from observations of star occultations). Micrometric measurements determined the selenographic coordinates of several main reference points in relation to the lunar equator and the mean meridian of the Moon, which serve to reference a large number of other points on the lunar surface. The main starting point is the small regular-shaped crater Mösting, clearly visible near the center of the lunar disk. The structure of the lunar surface has been mainly studied by photometric and polarimetric observations, supplemented by radio astronomical studies.

Craters on the lunar surface have different relative ages: from ancient, barely visible, highly reworked formations to very clear-cut young craters, sometimes surrounded by light “rays”. At the same time, young craters overlap older ones. In some cases, the craters are cut into the surface of the lunar maria, and in others, the rocks of the seas cover the craters. Tectonic ruptures either dissect craters and seas, or are themselves overlapped by younger formations. These and other relationships make it possible to establish the sequence of appearance of various structures on the lunar surface; in 1949, Soviet scientist A.V. Khabakov divided lunar formations into several successive age complexes. Further development of this approach made it possible by the end of the 60s to compile medium-scale geological maps for a significant part of the lunar surface. The absolute age of lunar formations is known so far only at a few points; but, using some indirect methods, it can be established that the age of the youngest large craters is tens and hundreds of millions of years, and the bulk of large craters arose in the “pre-marine” period, 3-4 billion years ago.

Both internal forces and external influences took part in the formation of lunar relief forms. Calculations of the thermal history of the Moon show that soon after its formation, the interior was heated by radioactive heat and was largely melted, which led to intense volcanism on the surface. As a result, giant lava fields and a number of volcanic craters were formed, as well as numerous cracks, ledges and more. At the same time, a huge number of meteorites and asteroids fell on the surface of the Moon in the early stages - the remnants of a protoplanetary cloud, the explosions of which created craters - from microscopic holes to ring structures with a diameter of many tens, and possibly up to several hundred kilometers. Due to the absence of an atmosphere and hydrosphere, a significant part of these craters has survived to this day. Nowadays, meteorites fall on the Moon much less frequently; volcanism also largely ceased as the Moon used up a lot of thermal energy and radioactive elements were carried into the outer layers of the Moon. Residual volcanism is evidenced by the outflow of carbon-containing gases in lunar craters, spectrograms of which were first obtained by the Soviet astronomer N.A. Kozyrev.

4.4. Lunar soil.

Everywhere where spacecraft have landed, the Moon is covered with so-called regolith. This is a heterogeneous debris-dust layer ranging in thickness from several meters to several tens of meters. It arose as a result of crushing, mixing and sintering of lunar rocks during the fall of meteorites and micrometeorites. Due to the influence of the solar wind, the regolith is saturated with neutral gases. Particles of meteorite matter were found among the regolith fragments. Based on radioisotopes, it was established that some fragments on the surface of the regolith had been in the same place for tens and hundreds of millions of years. Among the samples delivered to Earth, there are two types of rocks: volcanic (lava) and rocks that arose due to the crushing and melting of lunar formations during meteorite falls. The bulk of volcanic rocks are similar to terrestrial basalts. Apparently, all lunar seas are composed of such rocks.

In addition, in the lunar soil there are fragments of other rocks similar to those on Earth and the so-called KREEP - rock enriched in potassium, rare earth elements and phosphorus. Obviously, these rocks are fragments of the substance of the lunar continents. Luna 20 and Apollo 16, which landed on the lunar continents, brought back rocks such as anorthosites. All types of rocks were formed as a result of long evolution in the bowels of the Moon. In a number of ways, lunar rocks differ from terrestrial rocks: they contain very little water, little potassium, sodium and other volatile elements, and some samples contain a lot of titanium and iron. The age of these rocks, determined by the ratios of radioactive elements, is 3 - 4.5 billion years, which corresponds to the most ancient periods of the Earth's development.

4.5. Internal structure of the Moon

The structure of the Moon's interior is also determined taking into account the limitations that data on the figure of the celestial body and, especially, the nature of the propagation of P and S waves impose on models of the internal structure. The real figure of the Moon turned out to be close to spherical equilibrium, and from the analysis of the gravitational potential it was concluded that its density does not change much with depth, i.e. unlike the Earth, there is no large concentration of masses in the center.

The uppermost layer is represented by the crust, the thickness of which, determined only in the areas of the basins, is 60 km. It is very likely that on the vast continental areas of the far side of the Moon the crust is approximately 1.5 times thicker. The crust is composed of igneous crystalline rocks - basalts. However, in their mineralogical composition, the basalts of continental and marine areas have noticeable differences. While the most ancient continental regions of the Moon are predominantly formed by light rock - anorthosites (almost entirely consisting of intermediate and basic plagioclase, with small admixtures of pyroxene, olivine, magnetite, titanomagnetite, etc.), crystalline rocks of the lunar seas, like terrestrial basalts, composed mainly of plagioclases and monoclinic pyroxenes (augites). They probably formed when magmatic melt cooled at or near the surface. However, since lunar basalts are less oxidized than terrestrial ones, this means that they crystallized with a lower oxygen to metal ratio. In addition, they have a lower content of some volatile elements and at the same time are enriched in many refractory elements compared to terrestrial rocks. Due to the admixtures of olivine and especially ilmenite, the sea areas look darker, and the density of the rocks composing them is higher than on the continents.

Under the crust is the mantle, which, like the earth’s, can be divided into upper, middle and lower. The thickness of the upper mantle is about 250 km, and the middle is about 500 km, and its boundary with the lower mantle is located at a depth of about 1000 km. Up to this level, the velocities of transverse waves are almost constant, and this means that the subsoil substance is in a solid state, representing a thick and relatively cold lithosphere in which seismic vibrations do not die out for a long time. The composition of the upper mantle is presumably olivine-pyroxene, and at greater depths there is schnitzel and the mineral melilite, found in ultrabasic alkaline rocks. At the boundary with the lower mantle, temperatures approach melting temperatures, and strong absorption of seismic waves begins from here. This area is the lunar asthenosphere.

At the very center, there appears to be a small liquid core with a radius of less than 350 kilometers, through which transverse waves do not pass. The core can be iron sulfide or iron; in the latter case it should be smaller, which is in better agreement with estimates of the density distribution over depth. Its mass probably does not exceed 2% of the mass of the entire Moon. The temperature in the core depends on its composition and, apparently, lies within the range of 1300 - 1900 K. The lower limit corresponds to the assumption that the heavy fraction of lunar promaterial is enriched in sulfur, mainly in the form of sulfides, and the formation of a core from Fe - FeS eutectic with a melting point (weakly dependent from pressure) about 1300 K. The upper limit is better consistent with the assumption that the lunar promaterial is enriched in light metals (Mg, Ca, Na, Al), which are included, together with silicon and oxygen, in the composition of the most important rock-forming minerals of basic and ultrabasic rocks - pyroxenes and olivines. The latter assumption is also favored by the low content of iron and nickel in the Moon, as indicated by its low average area.

The rock samples returned by Apollo 11, 12 and 15 turned out to be mostly basaltic lava. This marine basalt is rich in iron and, less commonly, titanium. Although oxygen is undoubtedly one of the main elements of lunar sea rocks, lunar rocks are significantly poorer in oxygen than their terrestrial counterparts. Particularly noteworthy is the complete absence of water, even in the crystal lattice of minerals. The basalts delivered by Apollo 11 have the following composition:

The samples delivered by Apollo 14 represent a different type of crust - breccia, rich in radioactive elements. Breccia is an agglomerate of rock fragments cemented by small particles of regolith. The third type of lunar crust sample is aluminum-rich anorthosites. This rock is lighter than dark basalts. In terms of chemical composition, it is close to the rocks studied by Surveyor 7 in the mountainous region near the Tycho crater. This rock is less dense than basalt, so the mountains formed by it seem to float on the surface of denser lava.

All three rock types are represented in large samples collected by the Apollo astronauts; but confidence that they are the main types of rock composing the crust is based on the analysis and classification of thousands of small fragments in soil samples collected from various places on the surface of the Moon.

5.1. Moon phases

Not being self-luminous, the Moon is visible only in that part where the sun's rays fall, or rays reflected by the Earth. This explains the phases of the moon. Every month, the Moon, moving in orbit, passes between the Earth and the Sun and faces us with its dark side, at which time the new moon occurs. 1 - 2 days after this, a narrow bright crescent of the young Moon appears in the western sky. The rest of the lunar disk is at this time dimly illuminated by the Earth, which is turned toward the Moon with its daytime hemisphere. After 7 days, the Moon moves away from the Sun by 900, the first quarter begins, when exactly half of the Moon’s disk is illuminated and the terminator, that is, the dividing line between the light and dark sides, becomes straight - the diameter of the lunar disk. In the following days, the terminator becomes convex, the appearance of the Moon approaches a bright circle, and after 14 - 15 days the full moon occurs. On the 22nd day the last quarter is observed. The angular distance of the Moon from the sun decreases, it again becomes a crescent and after 29.5 days the new moon occurs again. The interval between two successive new moons is called a synodic month, which has an average length of 29.5 days. The synodic month is longer than the sidereal month, since during this time the Earth travels approximately 113 of its orbit and the Moon, in order to again pass between the Earth and the Sun, must travel an additional 113 of its orbit, which takes a little more than 2 days. If a new moon occurs near one of the nodes of the lunar orbit, a solar eclipse occurs, and a full moon near a node is accompanied by a lunar eclipse. The easily observable system of moon phases has served as the basis for a number of calendar systems.

5.2. A new stage in lunar exploration.

It is not surprising that the first flight of a spacecraft above Earth orbit was directed towards the Moon. This honor belongs to the Soviet spacecraft Luna-l, which was launched on January 2, 1958. In accordance with the flight program, a few days later it passed at a distance of 6,000 kilometers from the surface of the Moon. Later that year, in mid-September, a similar Luna series device reached the surface of the Earth's natural satellite.

A year later, in October 1959, the automatic Luna-3 spacecraft, equipped with photographic equipment, photographed the far side of the Moon (about 70% of the surface) and transmitted its image to Earth. The device had an orientation system with sensors of the Sun and Moon and jet engines running on compressed gas, a control and thermal control system. Its mass is 280 kilograms. The creation of Luna 3 was a technical achievement for that time, bringing information about the far side of the Moon: noticeable differences with the visible side were discovered, primarily the absence of extensive lunar seas.

In February 1966, the Luna-9 spacecraft delivered an automatic lunar station to the Moon, which made a soft landing and transmitted to Earth several panoramas of the nearby surface - a gloomy rocky desert. The control system ensured the orientation of the device, activation of the braking stage on command from the radar at an altitude of 75 kilometers above the surface of the Moon, and separation of the station from it immediately before the fall. Depreciation was provided by an inflatable rubber balloon. The mass of Luna-9 is about 1800 kilograms, the mass of the station is about 100 kilograms.

The next step in the Soviet lunar program was the automatic stations "Luna-16, -20, -24", designed to collect soil from the surface of the Moon and deliver its samples to Earth. Their mass was about 1900 kilograms. In addition to the braking propulsion system and the four-legged landing device, the stations included a soil intake device, a take-off rocket stage with a return vehicle for soil delivery. Flights took place in 1970, 1972 and 1976, and small amounts of soil were delivered to Earth.

Another problem was solved by Luna-17, -21 (1970, 1973). They delivered self-propelled vehicles to the Moon - lunar rovers, controlled from the Earth using a stereoscopic television image of the surface. "Lunokhod-1" traveled about 10 kilometers in 10 months, "Lunokhod-2" - about 37 kilometers in 5 months. In addition to panoramic cameras, the lunar rovers were equipped with: a soil sampling device, a spectrometer for analyzing the chemical composition of the soil, and a path meter. The masses of the lunar rovers are 756 and 840 kg.

The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images during the fall, from an altitude of about 1,600 kilometers to several hundred meters above the lunar surface. They had a three-axis orientation system and were equipped with six television cameras. The devices crashed during landing, so the resulting images were transmitted immediately, without recording. During three successful flights, extensive materials were obtained to study the morphology of the lunar surface. The filming of Rangers marked the beginning of the American planetary photography program.

The design of the Ranger spacecraft is similar to the design of the first Mariner spacecraft, which were launched to Venus in 1962. However, the further construction of lunar spacecraft did not follow this path. To obtain detailed information about the lunar surface, other spacecraft were used - the Lunar Orbiter. These devices photographed the surface with high resolution from the orbits of artificial moon satellites.

One of the goals of the flights was to obtain high-quality images with two resolutions, high and low, in order to select possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft using a special camera system. The photographs were developed on board, scanned photoelectrically and transmitted to Earth. The number of shots was limited by the film supply (210 frames). In 1966-1967, five Lunar Orbiter launches were carried out (all successful). The first three Orbiters were launched into circular orbits with low inclination and low altitude; Each of them carried out stereo surveys of selected areas on the visible side of the Moon with very high resolution and surveys of large areas of the far side with low resolution. The fourth satellite operated in a much higher polar orbit; it photographed the entire surface of the visible side; the fifth and final “Orbiter” also conducted observations from a polar orbit, but from lower altitudes. Lunar Orbiter 5 provided high-resolution imaging of many special targets on the visible side, mostly at mid-latitudes, and low-resolution imaging of a significant portion of the backside. Ultimately, medium-resolution imaging covered almost the entire surface of the Moon, while targeted imaging was carried out at the same time, which was invaluable for planning lunar landings and its photogeological studies.

Additionally, precise mapping of the gravitational field was carried out, while regional mass concentrations were identified (which is important both from a scientific point of view and for landing planning purposes) and a significant displacement of the Moon’s center of mass from the center of its figure was established. The fluxes of radiation and micrometeorites were also measured.

The Lunar Orbiter devices had a triaxial orientation system, their mass was about 390 kilograms. After completing the mapping, these vehicles crashed onto the lunar surface to stop the operation of their radio transmitters.

Flights of the Surveyor spacecraft, intended to obtain scientific data and engineering information (mechanical properties such as load-bearing

ability of lunar soil), made a great contribution to understanding the nature of the Moon and to the preparation of the Apollo landings.

Automatic landings using a sequence of commands controlled by closed-loop radar were a major technical advance at the time. The Surveyors were launched using Atlas-Centauri rockets (the Atlas cryogenic upper stages were another technical success of the time) and placed into transfer orbits to the Moon. Landing maneuvers began 30 - 40 minutes before landing, the main braking engine was turned on by radar at a distance of about 100 kilometers from the landing point. The final stage (descent speed of about 5 m/s) was carried out after the end of the main engine operation and its release at an altitude of 7500 meters. The Surveyor's mass at launch was about 1 ton and at landing - 285 kilograms. The main braking engine was a solid-fuel rocket weighing about 4 tons. The spacecraft had a three-axis orientation system.

The excellent instrumentation included two cameras for a panoramic view of the area, a small bucket for digging a trench in the ground and (in the last three vehicles) an alpha analyzer for measuring the backscatter of alpha particles to determine the elemental composition of the soil under the lander. In retrospect, the results of the chemical experiment clarified much about the nature of the lunar surface and its history. Five of the seven Surveyor launches were successful; all landed in the equatorial zone, except for the last one, which landed in the ejecta region of the Tycho crater at 41° S. Surveyor 6 was something of a pioneer - the first American spacecraft launched from another celestial body (but only to a second landing site a few meters away from the first).

The manned Apollo spacecraft were next in the American lunar exploration program. After Apollo, there were no flights to the Moon. Scientists had to be content with continuing to process data from robotic and manned flights in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of them foresaw the exploitation of lunar resources in the future and directed their efforts to develop processes that could transform lunar soil into materials suitable for construction, energy production and rocket engines. When planning a return to lunar exploration, both automatic and manned spacecraft will no doubt find use.

5.3. Magnetism of the Moon.

There is very interesting information on the topic: the magnetic field of the moon, its magnetism. Magnetometers installed on the moon will detect 2 types of lunar magnetic fields: constant fields generated by the “fossil” magnetism of lunar matter, and alternating fields caused by electric currents excited in the bowels of the Moon. These magnetic measurements have given us unique information about the history and current state of the Moon. The source of the "fossil" magnetism is unknown and indicates the existence of some extraordinary era in the history of the Moon. Alternating fields are excited in the Moon by changes in the magnetic field associated with the "solar wind" - streams of charged particles emitted by the sun. Although the strength of the constant fields measured on the Moon is less than 1% of the strength of the Earth's magnetic field, the lunar fields turned out to be much stronger than expected based on measurements carried out earlier by Soviet and American vehicles.

Instruments delivered to the lunar surface by Apollo testified that constant fields on the Moon vary from point to point, but do not fit into the picture of a global dipole field similar to the earth's. This suggests that the detected fields are caused by local sources. Moreover, high field strengths indicate that the sources have become magnetized in external fields much stronger than those currently existing on the Moon. At some time in the past, the moon either itself had a strong magnetic field or was located in an area of ​​a strong field. Here we are faced with a whole series of mysteries of lunar history: did the Moon have a field similar to the earth’s? Was it much closer to Earth where the Earth's magnetic field was strong enough? Did it acquire magnetization in some other region of the solar system and was later captured by the Earth? The answers to these questions can be encrypted in the “fossil” magnetism of lunar matter.

The alternating fields generated by electric currents flowing in the bowels of the Moon are associated with the entire Moon, and not with any of its individual regions. These fields wax and wane rapidly in accordance with changes in the solar wind. The properties of induced lunar fields depend on the conductivity of the lunar fields of the interior, and the latter, in turn, is closely related to the temperature of the substance. Therefore, the magnetometer can be used as an indirect "resistance thermometer" to determine the internal temperature of the Moon.

Research work:

6.1. Tidal Power Plant Research.

Under the influence of the attraction of the Moon and the Sun, periodic rises and falls of the surface of the seas and oceans occur - ebbs and flows. At the same time, water particles perform both vertical and horizontal movements. The highest tides are observed on the days of syzygies (new and full moons), the smallest (quadrature) coincide with the first and last quarters of the Moon. Between syzygies and quadratures, tide amplitudes can change by a factor of 2.7.

Due to changes in the distance between the Earth and the Moon, the tidal force of the Moon can change by 40% over the course of a month; the change in the tidal force of the Sun over a year is only 10%. Lunar tides are 2.17 times stronger than solar tides.

The main period of tides is semi-diurnal. Tides with such frequency prevail in the World Ocean. Diurnal and mixed tides are also observed. The characteristics of mixed tides vary throughout the month depending on the declination of the Moon.

In the open sea, the rise of the water surface during high tide does not exceed 1 m. Tides reach significantly higher values ​​at river mouths, straits and in gradually narrowing bays with a winding coastline. The tides reach their highest levels in the Bay of Fundy (Atlantic coast of Canada). Near the port of Moncton in this bay, the water level during high tide rises by 19.6 m. In England, at the mouth of the Severn River, which flows into Bristol Bay, the highest tide height is 16.3 m. On the Atlantic coast of France, near Granville, the tide reaches height 14.7 m, and in the area of ​​Saint-Malo up to 14 m. In the inland seas, the tides are insignificant. Thus, in the Gulf of Finland, near Leningrad, the tide does not exceed 4...5 cm, in the Black Sea, near Trebizond, it reaches 8 cm.

The rise and fall of the water surface during high and low tides are accompanied by horizontal tidal currents. The speed of these currents during syzygies is 2...3 times greater than during quadratures. Tidal currents at their highest speeds are called “living water.”

At low tides on the gently sloping shores of the seas, the bottom may be exposed at a distance of several kilometers perpendicular to the coastline. Fishermen on the Terek coast of the White Sea and the Nova Scotia Peninsula in Canada use this circumstance when fishing. Before the tide comes in, they set up nets on the gently sloping shore, and after the water recedes, they drive up to the nets on carts and collect the caught fish.

When the time of passage of a tidal wave through the bay coincides with the period of oscillations of the tidal force, the phenomenon of resonance occurs, and the amplitude of oscillations of the water surface increases greatly. A similar phenomenon is observed, for example, in the Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea.

At river mouths, tidal waves travel upstream, reduce the speed of the current and can reverse its direction. On the Northern Dvina, the effect of the tide is felt at a distance of up to 200 km from the mouth up the river, on the Amazon - at a distance of up to 1,400 km. On some rivers (Severn and Trent in England, Seine and Orne in France, Amazon in Brazil), the tidal current creates a steep wave 2...5 m high, which propagates up the river at a speed of 7 m/sec. The first wave may be followed by several smaller waves. As they move upward, the waves gradually weaken; when they encounter shallows and obstacles, they noisily break up and foam. This phenomenon is called boron in England, mascara in France, and poroca in Brazil.

In most cases, boron waves extend up the river 70...80 km, but in the Amazon up to 300 km. Boron is usually observed during the highest tides.

The decline in river water levels at low tide occurs more slowly than the rise at high tide. Therefore, when the tide begins to ebb at the mouth, the aftereffect of the tide can still be observed in areas remote from the mouth.

The St. Johns River in Canada, near its confluence with the Bay of Fundy, passes through a narrow gorge. During high tide, the gorge delays the movement of water up the river, the water level above the gorge is lower and therefore a waterfall is formed with the movement of water against the flow of the river. At low tide, the water does not have time to pass quickly enough through the gorge in the opposite direction, so the water level above the gorge turns out to be higher and a waterfall is formed, through which the water rushes down the river.

Tidal currents in the seas and oceans extend to much greater depths than wind currents. This promotes better mixing of water and delays the formation of ice on its free surface. In the northern seas, due to the friction of the tidal wave on the lower surface of the ice cover, the intensity of tidal currents decreases. Therefore, in winter in northern latitudes, tides are lower than in summer.

Since the rotation of the Earth around its axis is ahead in time of the movement of the Moon around the Earth, tidal friction forces arise in the water shell of our planet, to overcome which rotational energy is spent, and the rotation of the Earth slows down (by about 0.001 sec per 100 years). According to the laws of celestial mechanics, a further slowdown in the rotation of the Earth will entail a decrease in the speed of the Moon’s orbit and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Ultimately, the period of rotation of the Earth around its axis should be equal to the period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth. This will happen when the period of rotation of the Earth reaches 55 days. At the same time, the daily rotation of the Earth will stop, and tidal phenomena in the World Ocean will also stop.

For a long time, the rotation of the Moon was slowed down due to the tidal friction that arose in it under the influence of gravity (tidal phenomena can occur not only in the liquid, but also in the solid shell of a celestial body). As a result, the Moon has lost its rotation around its axis and now faces the Earth on one side. Due to the prolonged action of the tidal forces of the Sun, Mercury also lost its rotation. Like the Moon in relation to the Earth, Mercury faces the Sun on only one side.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, tidal power in small bays and narrow straits was widely used to power mills. Subsequently, it was used to drive pumping installations of water pipelines, for transportation and installation of massive parts of structures during hydraulic construction.

Nowadays, tidal energy is mainly converted into electrical energy at tidal power plants and then poured into the general flow of energy generated by power plants of all types. Unlike river hydropower, the average amount of tidal energy varies little from season to season, which allows tidal power plants to be more uniform provide energy to industrial enterprises.

Tidal power plants use the difference in water levels created during high and low tides. To do this, the coastal basin is separated by a low dam, which retains tidal water at low tide. Then the water is released and it rotates the hydraulic turbines

Tidal power plants can be a valuable local energy resource, but there are not many suitable places on Earth to build them to make a difference to the overall energy situation.

In Kislaya Bay near Murmansk, the first tidal power plant in our country with a capacity of 400 kilowatts began operating in 1968. A tidal power station is being designed at the mouth of the Mezen and Kuloy with a capacity of 2.2 million kilowatts.

Projects for tidal power plants are being developed abroad in the Bay of Fundy (Canada) and at the mouth of the Severn River (England) with a capacity of 4 and 10 million kilowatts, respectively; tidal power stations of Rance and Saint-Malo (France) with a capacity of 240 and 9 thousand have come into operation. kilowatt, small tidal power plants operate in China.

So far, the energy of tidal power plants is more expensive than the energy of thermal power plants, but with a more rational construction of the hydraulic structures of these stations, the cost of the energy they generate can be reduced to the cost of the energy of river power plants. Since the planet's tidal energy reserves significantly exceed the total hydropower of rivers, it can be assumed that tidal energy will play a significant role in the further progress of human society.

The world community envisions the leading use of environmentally friendly and renewable energy from sea tides in the 21st century. Its reserves can provide up to 15% of modern energy consumption.

33 years of experience in operating the world's first tidal power plants - Rance in France and Kislogubskaya in Russia - have proven that tidal power plants:

operate stably in power systems both at base and at peak load schedules with guaranteed constant monthly electricity generation

do not pollute the atmosphere with harmful emissions, unlike thermal stations

do not flood land, unlike hydroelectric power plants

do not pose a potential danger unlike nuclear power plants

capital investments for power plant structures do not exceed the costs for hydroelectric power plants thanks to the float construction method tested in Russia (without jumpers) and the use of a new technologically advanced orthogonal hydraulic unit

the cost of electricity is the cheapest in the energy system (proved over 35 years at the Rance PES - France).

The environmental effect (using the example of the Mezen TPP) is to prevent the emission of 17.7 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, which, with the cost of compensating the emission of 1 ton of CO2 at 10 USD (data from the 1992 World Energy Conference), can bring according to the formula The Kyoto Protocol has an annual income of about 1.7 billion USD.

The Russian school of using tidal energy is 60 years old. In Russia, the Tugurskaya TPP with a capacity of 8.0 GW and the Penzhinskaya TPP with a capacity of 87 GW on the Sea of ​​Okhotsk have been completed, the energy of which can be transferred to energy-deficient areas of Southeast Asia. On the White Sea, the Mezen TPP with a capacity of 11.4 GW is being designed, the energy of which is supposed to be sent to Western Europe via the East-West integrated energy system.

Floating "Russian" technology for the construction of tidal power plants, tested at the Kislogubskaya tidal power station and at the protective dam of St. Petersburg, allows one to reduce capital costs by a third compared to the classical method of constructing hydraulic structures behind the dams.

Natural conditions in the research area (Arctic):

sea ​​water with oceanic salinity 28-35 o/oo and temperature from -2.8 C to +10.5 C

air temperature in winter (9 months) up to -43 C

air humidity not lower than 80%

number of cycles (per year): soaking-drying - up to 690, freezing-thawing up to 480

fouling of structures in sea water with biomass - up to 230 kg/m2 (layers up to 20 cm thick)

electrochemical corrosion of metals up to 1 mm per year

the ecological state of the area is without pollution, sea water is free of petroleum products.

In Russia, substantiation of PES projects is carried out at a specialized marine scientific base in the Barents Sea, where studies of marine materials, structures, equipment and anti-corrosion technologies are carried out.

The creation in Russia of a new efficient and technologically simple orthogonal hydraulic unit implies the possibility of its mass production and a radical reduction in the cost of PES. The results of Russian work on TES were published in the major monograph by L.B. Bernstein, I.N. Usachev and others, “Tidal Power Plants,” published in 1996 in Russian, Chinese and English.

Russian tidal energy specialists at the Gidroproekt and NIIES institutes carry out a full range of design and research work on the creation of marine energy and hydraulic structures on the coast and on the shelf, including in the Far North, allowing to fully realize all the benefits of tidal hydropower.

Environmental characteristics of tidal power plants

Environmental Safety:

PES dams are biologically permeable

the passage of fish through the PES occurs almost unhindered

full-scale tests at the Kislogubskaya TPP did not reveal any dead fish or any damage to them (research by the Polar Institute of Fisheries and Oceanology)

The main food supply of the fish stock is plankton: 5-10% of plankton die at the PPP, and 83-99% at the HPP

the decrease in water salinity in the TES basin, which determines the ecological state of marine fauna and ice, is 0.05-0.07%, i.e. almost imperceptible

the ice regime in the TES basin is softening

hummocks and the prerequisites for their formation disappear in the basin

there is no pressure effect of ice on the structure

bottom erosion and sediment movement are completely stabilized during the first two years of operation

The floating method of construction makes it possible not to erect temporary large construction bases at the TPP sites, build dams, etc., which helps preserve the environment in the TPP area

the release of harmful gases, ash, radioactive and thermal waste, extraction, transportation, processing, combustion and burial of fuel, prevention of combustion of air oxygen, flooding of territories, the threat of a breakthrough wave are excluded

The PES does not threaten humans, and changes in the area of ​​its operation are only local in nature, and mainly in a positive direction.

Energy characteristics of tidal power plants

tidal energy

renewable

unchanged in monthly (seasonal and long-term) periods for the entire service life

independent of the water level of the year and the availability of fuel

used in conjunction with power plants of other types in power systems both in the base and at the peak of the load schedule

Economic justification for tidal power plants

The cost of energy at an IPP is the lowest in the energy system compared to the cost of energy at all other types of power plants, which has been proven over the 33-year operation of the industrial IPP Rance in France - in the Electricite de France energy system in the center of Europe.

For 1995, the cost of 1 kWh of electricity (in centimes) was:

The cost of kWh of electricity (in 1996 prices) in the feasibility study of the Tugurskaya TPP is 2.4 kopecks, in the Amguen NPP project - 8.7 kopecks.
The feasibility study of Tugurskaya (1996) and materials for the feasibility study of Mezenskaya TPP (1999), thanks to the use of effective technologies and new equipment, for the first time substantiated the equivalence of capital costs and construction time for large TPPs and new hydroelectric power stations under identical conditions.

Social significance of tidal power plants

Tidal power plants do not have harmful effects on humans:

no harmful emissions (unlike thermal power plants)

there is no flooding of land and no danger of waves breaking into the downstream (unlike hydroelectric power plants)

no radiation hazard (unlike nuclear power plants)

the impact on the TES of catastrophic natural and social phenomena (earthquakes, floods, military operations) does not threaten the population in the areas adjacent to the TES.

Favorable factors in TPP basins:

· mitigation (evening out) of climatic conditions in the territories adjacent to the TPP basin

· protection of coasts from storm phenomena

· expanding the capabilities of mariculture farms due to an almost doubling of seafood biomass

· improvement of the region's transport system

· exceptional opportunities for expanding tourism.

PES in the European energy system

Option for using PES in the European energy system - - -

According to experts, they could cover about 20 percent of Europeans' total electricity needs. This technology is especially beneficial for island territories, as well as for countries with long coastlines.

Another way to generate alternative electricity is to use the temperature difference between sea water and cold air in the Arctic (Antarctic) regions of the globe. In a number of areas of the Arctic Ocean, especially at the mouths of large rivers such as the Yenisei, Lena, and Ob, in the winter season there are especially favorable conditions for the operation of Arctic OTES. The average long-term winter (November-March) air temperature here does not exceed -26 C. The warmer and fresher river flow warms the sea water under the ice to 30 C. Arctic ocean thermal power plants can operate according to the usual OTES scheme, based on a closed cycle with low-boiling water working fluid. The OTES includes: a steam generator for producing steam of the working substance through heat exchange with sea water, a turbine for driving an electric generator, devices for condensing steam exhausted in the turbine, as well as pumps for supplying sea water and cold air. A more promising scheme is an Arctic OTES with an intermediate coolant cooled by air in irrigation mode" (See B.M. Berkovsky, V.A. Kuzminov “Renewable energy sources in the service of man”, Moscow, Nauka, 1987, pp. 63- 65.) Such an installation can already be manufactured at the present time. It can use: a) for the evaporator – an APV shell-and-plate heat exchanger with a thermal power of 7000 kW. b) for the condenser - APV shell-and-plate heat exchanger, thermal power 6600 kW or any other condensation heat exchanger of the same power. c) turbogenerator – a 400 kW Jungstrom turbine and two built-in generators with disk rotors, permanent magnets, with a total power of 400 kW. d) pumps - any, with a capacity for coolant - 2000 m3/h, for working substance - 65 m3/h, for coolant - 850 m3/h. e) cooling tower - collapsible, 5-6 meters high, with a diameter of 8-10 m. The installation can be assembled in a 20-foot container and transferred to any necessary place where there is a river with a water flow of more than 2500 m3/h, with a water temperature not less than +30C or a large lake from which such an amount of water can be taken, and cold air with a temperature below –300C. It will take only a few hours to assemble the cooling tower, after which, if the water supply is ensured, the installation will operate and produce more than 325 kW of electricity for useful use, without any fuel. From the above it is clear that it is already possible to provide humanity with alternative electricity if we invest in it.

There is another way to obtain energy from the ocean - power plants that use the energy of sea currents. They are also called “underwater mills”.

7.1. Conclusion:

I would like to base my conclusion on lunar-terrestrial connections and I want to talk about these connections.

LUNAR-EARTH CONNECTIONS

The Moon and the Sun cause tides in the water, air and solid shells of the Earth. The tides in the Hydrosphere caused by the action of

Moons. During a lunar day, measured in 24 hours and 50 minutes, there are two rises in sea level (high tides) and two lowerings (low tides). The range of oscillations of the tidal wave in the lithosphere at the equator reaches 50 cm, at the latitude of Moscow - 40 cm. Atmospheric tidal phenomena have a significant impact on the general circulation of the atmosphere.

The sun also causes all kinds of tides. The phases of solar tides are 24 hours, but the tidal force of the Sun is 0.46 Parts of the tidal force of the Moon. It should be borne in mind that depending on the relative position of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun, the tides caused by the simultaneous action of the Moon and the Sun either strengthen or weaken each other. Therefore, twice during the lunar month the tides will reach their highest and twice their lowest. In addition, the Moon revolves around a common center of gravity with the Earth in an elliptical orbit, and therefore the distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon varies from 57 to 63.7 Earth radii, as a result of which the tidal force changes by 40% during the month.

Geologist B.L. Lichkov, having compared graphs of tides in the ocean over the last century with a graph of the Earth's rotation speed, came to the conclusion that the higher the tides, the lower the Earth's rotation speed. A tidal wave constantly moving against the Earth's rotation slows it down, and the day lengthens by 0.001 seconds every 100 years. Currently, an earthly day is equal to 24 hours, or more precisely, the Earth makes a complete rotation around its axis in 23 hours 56 minutes. 4 seconds, and one billion years ago a day was equal to 17 hours.

B. L. Lichkov also established a connection between changes in the speed of rotation of the Earth under the influence of tidal waves and climate change. Other comparisons made by this scientist are also interesting. He took a graph of average annual temperatures from 1830 to 1939 and compared it with herring catch data for the same period. It turned out that temperature fluctuations caused by climate change under the influence of lunar and solar gravity affect the number of herring, in other words, their feeding and breeding conditions: in warm years there is more of it than in cold years.

Thus, a comparison of the graphs made it possible to conclude that there is a unity of factors that determine the dynamics of the troposphere, the dynamics of the solid shell of the earth - the lithosphere, the hydrosphere and, finally, biological

processes.

A.V. Shnitnikov also points out that the main factors creating rhythm in climate change are tidal force and solar activity. Every 40 thousand years, the length of the earth's day increases by 1 second. The tidal force is characterized by a rhythm of 8.9; 18.6; 111 and 1850 years, and solar activity has cycles of 11, 22 and 80-90 years.

However, the well-known surface tidal waves in the ocean do not have a significant effect on the climate, but internal tidal waves, affecting the waters of the World Ocean at significant depths, significantly disrupt the temperature regime and density of ocean waters. A.V. Shnitnikov, citing V.Yu. Wiese and O. Petterson, talks about a case when in May 1912, between Norway and Iceland, a surface of zero temperature was first discovered at a depth of 450 m, and then, 16 hours later, the internal wave raised this surface of zero temperatures to a depth of 94 M. A study of the distribution of salinity during the passage of internal tidal waves, in particular the surface with a salinity of 35%, showed that this surface rose from a depth of 270 m to 170 m.

The cooling of the surface waters of the ocean as a result of the action of internal waves is transmitted to the lower layers of the atmosphere in contact with it, i.e. internal waves affect the climate of the planet. In particular, cooling of the ocean surface leads to an increase in snow and ice cover.

The accumulation of snow and ice in the polar regions contributes to an increase in the speed of rotation of the Earth, since a large amount of water is withdrawn from the World Ocean and its level decreases. At the same time, the paths of cyclones shift towards the equator, which leads to greater humidification of the middle latitudes.

Thus, with the accumulation of snow and ice in the polar regions and during the reverse transition from the solid phase to the liquid, conditions arise for periodic redistribution of the water mass relative to the poles and the equator, which ultimately leads to a change in the daily speed of rotation of the Earth.

The close connection between the tidal force and solar activity with biological phenomena allowed A.V. Shnitnikov to find out the reasons for the rhythmicity in the migration of the boundaries of geographical zones along the following chain: tidal force, internal waves, temperature regime of the ocean, ice cover in the Arctic, atmospheric circulation, humidity and temperature regime of the continents ( river flow, lake level, peatland moisture content, groundwater, mountain glaciers, eternal

permafrost).

T. D. and S. D. Reznichenko came to the conclusion that:

1) the hydrosphere transforms the energy of gravitational forces into mechanical energy and slows down the rotation of the Earth;

2) moisture, moving to the poles or to the equator, transforms the thermal energy of the Sun into the mechanical energy of daily rotation and gives this rotation an oscillatory character.

In addition, according to literary data, they traced the history of the development of 13 reservoirs and 22 rivers of Eurasia over the past 4.5 thousand years and established that during this period of time the hydraulic network underwent rhythmic migration. With cooling, the speed of the Earth's daily rotation increased and the hydraulic network experienced a shift towards the equator. With warming, the Earth's daily rotation slowed down and the hydraulic network experienced a shift towards the pole

References:

1. Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

2. Children's encyclopedia.

3. B. A. Vorontsov - Velyaminov. Essays about the Universe. M., “Science”, 1975

4. Baldwin R. What do we know about the Moon. M., “Mir”, 1967

5. Whipple F. Earth, Moon and Planets. M., “Science”, 1967

6. Space biology and medicine. M., “Science”, 1994

7. Usachev I.N. Tidal power plants. - M.: Energy, 2002. Usachev I.N. Economic assessment of tidal power plants taking into account the environmental effect // Proceedings of the XXI SIGB Congress. - Montreal, Canada, June 16-20, 2003.
Velikhov E.P., Galustov K.Z., Usachev I.N., Kucherov Yu.N., Britvin S.O., Kuznetsov I.V., Semenov I.V., Kondrashov Yu.V. A method for constructing a large-block structure in the coastal zone of a reservoir and a floating complex for implementing the method. - RF Patent No. 2195531, state. reg. 12/27/2002
Usachev I.N., Prudovsky A.M., Historian B.L., Shpolyansky Yu.B. Application of an orthogonal turbine at tidal power plants // Hydrotechnical construction. – 1998. – No. 12.
Rave R., Bjerregård H., Milazh K. Project to achieve the generation of 10% of global electricity using wind energy by 2020 // Proceedings of the FED Forum, 1999.
Atlases of wind and solar climates of Russia. - St. Petersburg: Main Geophysical Observatory named after. A.I. Voeykova, 1997.

Mysteries of the Moon

The project was prepared by

Student of class 3A MAOU Multidisciplinary Lyceum named after. 202 VDB Khabarovsk

Karnaukhova Yarina

Head: Gromova V.S.

Relevance

The moon is our only satellite. However, despite its relative proximity to us and its apparent simplicity, it continues to hide many interesting secrets. The moon is increasingly attracting the attention of scientists, engineers and economists, who are considering various options for using it in the further study and exploration of space, as well as its natural resources, so the study of the moon is one of the pressing issues today.

The Moon is both a celestial body and a natural satellite of planet Earth. Its features and secrets.

• Collection and synthesis of information about the Moon.
• Identification of questions that have not yet been answered.

• Learn as many facts about the Moon as possible.
• Find out what questions in the study of the Moon astronomers cannot answer.
• Observe changes in the Moon using a telescope.
• Make a lunar calendar for one lunar month.
• Draw conclusions based on the results of the work.

• Bibliographic analysis of literature and Internet materials
• Study and synthesis
• Observation

What is the Moon?

The Moon is a natural satellite of the Earth; it revolves around our planet for at least 4 billion years. This is a stone ball about four times the size of the Earth. There is no atmosphere on it, no water and air. Temperatures range from minus 173 at night to plus 127 degrees Celsius during the day. It is large enough for a satellite and is the 5th largest satellite in the Solar System.

Mystery of origin

It is still not known exactly how the Moon appeared. Before scientists obtained samples of lunar soil, they knew nothing about when and how the Moon was formed. There were two fundamentally different theories:

• The Moon and Earth formed at the same time from a cloud of gas and dust;
• The Moon formed elsewhere and was subsequently captured by the Earth.

However, new information

obtained through detailed

studying samples from the Moon,

led to the creation of a theory

Giant collision .

Although this theory also has

disadvantages currently

time it is considered the main one.

But scientists cannot yet unambiguously explain the origin of the Moon.

Giant Impact Theory

4.36 billion years ago, Earth collided with an object the size of Mars. The blow did not land in the center, but at an angle (almost tangentially). As a result, most of the substance of the impacted object and part of the substance of the earth's mantle were thrown into low-Earth orbit.

From these debris the Moon was assembled and began to orbit.

Where do craters come from on the Moon?

The fact is that, unlike the Earth, it does not have its own atmosphere that would protect it from cosmic bodies in the form of meteorites. When a meteorite enters the Earth's atmosphere, due to friction with the air, in most cases it burns up before reaching the surface. On the Moon, everything that falls to the surface leaves huge imprints in the form of craters.

Dark spots on the Moon, what are they?

Dark spots visible to the naked eye on the lunar surface are relatively flat areas with fewer craters, they lie below the level of the continental surface and are called maria. There is no water in them, but millions of years ago they were filled with volcanic lava.

They were called seas,

because the first astronomers

were sure that they saw lakes

and the sea, since the absence

They didn’t realize there was water on the Moon.

Why do the Sun and Moon appear the same from Earth?

The diameter of the Sun is about 400 times greater than the diameter of the Moon, but the distance from us to the Sun is also about 400 times greater, so from Earth both objects appear approximately the same. This is precisely what explains the fact that during a total solar eclipse, the lunar disk exactly coincides with the solar disk, covering it almost completely.

Why is only one side of the Moon visible from Earth?

The Moon is constantly turned to the earth with one side, because its full revolution around its own axis and its revolution around the Earth are the same in duration and equal to 27 Earth days and eight hours. The reasons for this phenomenon have not yet been clarified; the main theory of this synchronization is that the tides that the Earth causes in the lunar crust are to blame.

What's on the far side of the Moon?

In 1959, the Soviet station Luna 3 orbited the Moon for the first time and photographed the far side of the satellite, where there were almost no seas. Why they are not there is still a mystery.

Why does the Moon “change” color so often?

The moon is the brightest object in the night sky. But it doesn't glow on its own. Moonlight is the sun's rays reflected from the lunar surface. The moon has a pure white color only during the day. This is because the blue light scattered from the sky adds to the yellowish light reflected from the Moon itself. As the blue color of the sky weakens after sunset, it becomes more and more yellow, and near the horizon it becomes as orange and even red as the setting Sun.

Are there earthquakes on the Moon?

They happen, and they are usually called moonquakes.

Moonquakes can be divided into four groups:

• tidal, occurring twice a month, caused by the tidal forces of the Sun and Earth;
• tectonic - irregular, caused by movements in the soil of the Moon;
• meteorite - due to the fall of meteorites;
• thermal - they are caused by the sharp heating of the lunar surface with sunrise.

However, the strongest

moonquakes still happening

not explained.

Astronomers don't know

what causes them.

Is there an echo on the Moon?

On November 20, 1969, the crew of Apollo 12 ejected the lunar module onto the lunar surface, and the noise from its impact on the surface triggered a moonquake. The consequences were unexpected - the moon rang like a bell for another hour.

What is the Moon covered with?

The surface of the Moon is covered with so-called regolith - a mixture of fine dust and rocky debris formed as a result of meteorite collisions with the lunar surface. It is fine, like flour, but very coarse, so it cuts no worse than glass. It is believed that with prolonged contact with lunar dust, even the most durable object can break. Moon dust is 50% silicon dioxide and half oxides of twelve different metals, including aluminum, magnesium and iron, and smells like burnt gunpowder.

The influence of the Moon on planet Earth?

The only phenomenon that visibly demonstrates the effect of the Moon's gravity is the effect on the ebb and flow of the tides. The Moon's gravity pulls the oceans along the Earth's circumference, causing water to swell in each hemisphere. This swelling follows the Moon as the Earth moves, as if running around it. Because oceans are large masses of liquid and can flow, they are easily deformed by the gravitational forces of the Moon. This is how the tides ebb and flow.

But whether the Moon influences a person is impossible to say for sure. Scientists have not come to a common conclusion.

Practical part of the work

Observing the phases of the Moon through a telescope during December 2016.

Moon phases in December 2016

Waxing moon - from 01.12.16 to 13.12.16 during the period of the waxing moon, the Sun illuminates only part of its “sickle”, every day it increases and turns into a semicircle - First quarter . 07.12.16

Full moon– 01/14/17 At the moment of the full moon, the earth is located between the Sun and the Moon and is completely illuminated by the sun. We see a full circle.

Waning moon– from 12/15/16 to 12/29/16 during the period of the waning moon The luminous circle gradually

turns into a sickle and then into

semicircle - Last quarter

New Moon – 29.12.16

at the time of the new moon the moon

appears between the Earth and

The sun, the sun illuminates that

the side of the Moon that is not visible to us,

that's why from the ground it seems like the moon

Prospects for expanding theoretical knowledge

Studying the lunar crust by Lunokhods can provide answers to the most important questions about the formation and further evolution of the Solar system, the Earth-Moon system and the emergence of life.

The absence of an atmosphere on the Moon creates almost ideal conditions for observing and studying the planets of the Solar System, stars, nebulae and other galaxies.

Practical use

Environmental problems that already exist are forcing humanity to change its consumer attitude towards nature. The Moon contains a variety of useful inorganic minerals. In addition, in the surface layer of the lunar soil, the isotope helium-3, rare on Earth, has been accumulated, which can be used as fuel for promising thermonuclear reactors.

The moon is a very interesting object to study. It has enormous both theoretical and practical significance for space exploration. This work was carried out in order to learn more about our closest celestial satellite, to pose questions that scientists may be able to answer in the future. Maybe someday people will be able to make long-term space flights, and studying the Moon is one of the stages on the way to this.

Bibliography:

• http://unnatural.ru
• https://ru.wikipedia.org
• http://v-kosmose.com
• http://www.astro-cabinet.ru/