How can the moon do that?

quote: and what are the chances of that?

Why do you think it has anything to do with chance. If you think its immpossible, look at the equations for the graviational relationships between them and please show us why it shouldn't be happening.

I was asking a question and never said it was "impossible" (that would just be dumb.) I only wanted someone like you to tell me why politely but thanks anyway.

[edit on 31-7-2006 by Xeros]

What if the moon is a spaceship?
informantnews.com...
informantnews.com...
informantnews.com...
informantnews.com...

Yeah, the moon is definitely not in a perfect orbit. It's got an eccentricity of about .05, something like that. It's also about 11 degrees out of plane with us so that causes all sorts of fun hell for rocket scientist. Circular planar would be lovely but it just ain't so. The moon is inching farther away because of something called tidal friction I believe. It's got to do with pulling the water all over the world with the tides.

I can understand why the moon is in orbit and all of that...but how is the moon just the right size and distance from the earth to allow this phenomenon?

It's actually just the shadow... look up umbra and penumbra -- it will explain a whole lot.

As for it the equilibrium being amazing (For the moon to orbit the earth) it is no more amazing than the earth staying in orbit around the sun.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
But how much did the formation of the moon affect Earth's orbit around the sun? Going from a few equally spread out dust particles to a single massive body swinging off you is no easy transition, especially when you're delicately orbiting around a fusion reactor. Was it possible that the moons formation stopped this planet from falling into the sun, or something>?

I believe that the impactor would have significantly moved the Earth out of whatever orbit it was in at the time. That's just simple physics... But as that impact happened about 4.5 billion years ago, a lot of the debris would have spread out or impacted on the Earth or Moon. Aside from that, there arn't any real geological records from that far back, since the Earth was still molten at the time.

If anything, the fact that the collision happened when the Earth was still molten is the reason the planet is still here today. As it was molten it would have aborbed the impact better than a solid body.

Originally posted by Mogget
Actually, Earth's density is fractionally higher than that of Mercury.

That's correct. They are close, as is Venus.

Earth density - 5.52
Mercury density - 5.42
Venus density - 5.26

Just to give everyone an idea of their densities.

Originally posted by LordOfBunnies
Yeah, the moon is definitely not in a perfect orbit.

What is!?

Originally posted by Xeros
I only wanted someone like you to tell me why politely

I wasn't trying to be rude, apologies.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
At the very least, the moon should be flying away from us at 100 kilometres an hour, but it isn't. How can it slot into that exact place at the exact right speed and all that?

The formation of the moon is still a theory. No-one really knows for certain and this is the best article I could find which was reasonably informative on why the moon is where it is.

The reason why it 'sort-of' stays there has not been addressed, though. I'll keep digging.


www.space.com...

Our moon, Ward says, gathered itself together by gravitationally combining the outer bits of debris after the glancing collision by the Mars-sized object. The moon-building process probably took a year or less, though other theories suggest it took much longer.

Ward said that while studying models of lunar formation, he and Canup realized that the inner disk of debris would remain after the moon had formed, setting up a process of "gravitational resonance."

"The moon causes ripple-like waves in the [inner debris] disk, which then interact with the moon's orbit to increase its orbital tilt to about 10 to 12 degrees from an initial value that was probably only about 1 degree or so," Ward said. "During this process, the last vestiges of the diskre-impact the Earth."

Thereafter, the moon's orbit continued to slowly expand, Ward says. Gravitational interactions with Earth and the sun (the same things that create tides on our oceans) eventually changed the inclination of the moon's orbit to its present 5 degrees.

Our natural satellite's initial inclination "has been discussed for eons," said Alan Binder of the Lunar Research Institute.

Binder called the new study interesting and useful, and said that the results may well reflect what happened. He cautioned, however, that studies based on computer models -- instead of actual observations -- are not typically the main force that drives scientific understanding.

So while the new view of the moon's past could be accurate, only more concrete evidence will provide a complete picture of how the moon came to be, Binder said.

bolding mine

Sorry mods for copying the ALMOST entire article but it seems no one is paying attention to my posts.If you want to know more about strange moon facts then check my post above.

informantnews.com...

1. Moon’s Age: The moon is far older than previously expected. Maybe even older than the Earth or the Sun. The oldest age for the Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old; moon rocks were dated at 5.3 billion years old, and the dust upon which they were resting was at least another billion years older.

2. Rock’s Origin: The chemical composition of the dust upon which the rocks sat differed remarkably from the rocks themselves, contrary to accepted theories that the dust resulted from weathering and breakup of the rocks themselves. The rocks had to have come from somewhere else.

3. Heavier Elements on Surface: Normal planetary composition results in heavier elements in the core and lighter materials at the surface; not so with the moon. According to Wilson, "The abundance of refractory elements like titanium in the surface areas is so pronounced that several geologists proposed the refractory compounds were brought to the moon’s surface in great quantity in some unknown way. They don’t know how, but that it was done cannot be questioned." (Emphasis added).

4. Water Vapor: On March 7, 1971, lunar instruments placed by the astronauts recorded a vapor cloud of water passing across the surface of the moon. The cloud lasted 14 hours and covered an area of about 100 square miles.

5. Magnetic Rocks: Moon rocks were magnetized. This is odd because there is no magnetic field on the moon itself. This could not have originated from a "close call" with Earth—such an encounter would have ripped the moon apart.

6. No Volcanoes: Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions.

7. Moon Mascons: Mascons, which are large, dense, circular masses lying twenty to forty miles beneath the centers of the moon’s maria, "are broad, disk-shaped objects that could be possibly some kind of artificial construction. For huge circular disks are not likely to be beneath each huge maria, centered like bull’s-eyes in the middle of each, by coincidence or accident." (Emphasis added).

8. Seismic Activity: Hundreds of "moonquakes" are recorded each year that cannot be attributed to meteor strikes. In November, 1958, Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory photographed a gaseous eruption of the moon near the crater Alphonsus. He also detected a reddish glow that lasted for about an hour. In 1963, astronomers at the Lowell Observatory also saw reddish glows on the crests of ridges in the Aristarchus region. These observations have proved to be precisely identical and periodical, repeating themselves as the moon moves closer to the Earth. These are probably not natural phenomena.

9. Hollow Moon: The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean? In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, "If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere." Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where is "simply a cavity." MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, "the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field . . . indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow." In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, "A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object."

10. Moon Echoes: On November 20, 1969, the Apollo 12 crew jettisoned the lunar module ascent stage causing it to crash onto the moon. The LM’s impact (about 40 miles from the Apollo 12 landing site) created an artificial moonquake with startling characteristics—the moon reverberated like a bell for more than an hour. This phenomenon was repeated with Apollo 13 (intentionally commanding the third stage to impact the moon), with even more startling results. Seismic instruments recorded that the reverberations lasted for three hours and twenty minutes and traveled to a depth of twenty-five miles, leading to the conclusion that the moon has an unusually light—or even no—core.

11. Unusual Metals: The moon’s crust is much harder than presumed. Remember the extreme difficulty the astronauts encountered when they tried to drill into the maria? Surprise! The maria is composed primarily illeminite, a mineral containing large amounts of titanium, the same metal used to fabricate the hulls of deep-diving submarines and the skin of the SR-71 "Blackbird". Uranium 236 and neptunium 237 (elements not found in nature on Earth) were discovered in lunar rocks, as were rustproof iron particles.

12. Moon’s Origin: Before the astronauts’ moon rocks conclusively disproved the theory, the moon was believed to have originated when a chunk of Earth broke off eons ago (who knows from where?). Another theory was that the moon was created from leftover "space dust" remaining after the Earth was created. Analysis of the composition of moon rocks disproved this theory also. Another popular theory is that the moon was somehow "captured" by the Earth’s gravitational attraction. But no evidence exists to support this theory. Isaac Asimov, stated, "It’s too big to have been captured by the Earth. The chances of such a capture having been effected and the moon then having taken up nearly circular orbit around our Earth are too small to make such an eventuality credible."

13. Weird Orbit: Our moon is the only moon in the solar system that has a stationary, near-perfect circular orbit. Stranger still, the moon’s center of mass is about 6000 feet closer to the Earth than its geometric center (which should cause wobbling), but the moon’s bulge is on the far side of the moon, away from the Earth. "Something" had to put the moon in orbit with its precise altitude, course, and speed.

14. Moon Diameter: How does one explain the "coincidence" that the moon is just the right distance, coupled with just the right diameter, to completely cover the sun during an eclipse? Again, Isaac Asimov responds, "There is no astronomical reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion."

15. Spaceship Moon: As outrageous as the Moon-Is-a-Spaceship Theory is, all of the above items are resolved if one assumes that the moon is a gigantic extraterrestrial craft, brought here eons ago by intelligent beings. This is the only theory that is supported by all of the data, and there are no data that contradict this theory.

[edit on 1-8-2006 by warthog911]

Originally posted by warthog911
2. Rock’s Origin: . . . weathering and breakup of the rocks themselves. The rocks had to have come from somewhere else.

The moon has no weather. How could the rocks break-up?

10. Moon Echoes

Never heard anything about that. Very interesting.

13. Weird Orbit: . . . "Something" had to put the moon in orbit with its precise altitude, course, and speed.

WHY I STARTED THIS THREAD!!!

14. Moon Diameter: How does one explain the "coincidence" that the moon is just the right distance, coupled with just the right diameter, to completely cover the sun during an eclipse?

Read up. It's not, and it doesn't.



But anyways, thanks everyone for your contributions! I think the 'form from dust' theory is the most obvious, but some of the points brought up by Warthog have got me thinking again.

edit: Cant type proper. *yawn*

[edit on 1/8/2006 by watch_the_rocks]

another wierd moon.Saturns iapetus
en.wikipedia.org...
www.enterprisemission.com...

Lets see nygdan debunk this

Originally posted by masqua
What blows my mind is how the moon seems exactly the size of the solar disc during an eclipse.

I can understand why the moon is in orbit and all of that...but how is the moon just the right size and distance from the earth to allow this phenomenon?

I'm sure Commanderkeenkid has an explanation...

I'm not a astronote nor a physician but the phenoma of the eclipse is easy to understand when you imagine this;
imagine you are looking to the sun, you see it as a disc.
Now take a coin or a CD and put it between your eyes and the sun.
If you put the CD just few centimeters from your eyes you will see nothing. Now try to move it slowly away from your eyes till the disque reach a point where he seems to have the same diameter of the sun (that's what you think of course)
This is the total eclipse.
Now i you have you push your CD further you will have an eclipse but not a full one.

this is what happens but in a gegasize.
the moon come betwen the sun and the earth.
''the moon is the CD''


what's amazing in this phenomena is the exact distance between the sun, the moon and the earth compared to the diameters of both the sun and the moon.

This is a rare natural amazing phenomena!!!!
what i really like in eclipse is not the diamond ect.... it is just to imagine the tiny presicions of our worl..... let's say galaxy.

i just want to add something;
the moon do change it's orbit, just few inches in a hundred year. That don't mean we shouldn't have eclipse. That only could mean a change where on earth we should be able to see it.

Sigh... Here we go again...

Before I even begin, I suggest you read through this thread: An end to the Moon Conspiracy! A lot of you comments/questions are answered there as well.

Originally posted by warthog911
Sorry mods for copying the ALMOST entire article but it seems no one is paying attention to my posts.If you want to know more about strange moon facts then check my post above.

Well, they're not facts, just poorly constued "science" and "theories," hence why I ignored it. Also, Hoagland and his followers have been proven countless times to be nothing but morons out to sell books and dupe those who don't take the effort to find the real scientific conclusions on their own.

1. Moon’s Age: The moon is far older than previously expected...

As for the age of the Moon rocks... The stuff from the mares 3.2 bya, while the rocks from the highlands dates back to 4.6 bya. The Earth is roughly 4.4 bya. Now, Luna is smaller, so it probably cooled faster, allowing for surface material to be created before it could be on Earth, hence the slight difference of age.

Where has anyone scientifically said that the Moon rocks date back to 5.3 bya?

2. Rock’s Origin: The chemical composition of the dust upon which the rocks sat differed remarkably from the rocks themselves...

Except there were never any theories of weathering taking place on the Moon. We've known for a few hundred years that it had no atmosphere, and therefore no weathering. Could it simply be that the rocks shielded the dust below them from most of the solar radiation, while the dust exposed baked and formedslightly differing compounds?

3. Heavier Elements on Surface: Normal planetary composition results in heavier elements in the core and lighter materials at the surface; not so with the moon.

Actually, the Moon all around isn't really all that dense. Besides, as people have said, it's entire make up is more similar to that of the Earth's crust.

According to Wilson, "The abundance of refractory elements like titanium in the surface areas is so pronounced that several geologists proposed the refractory compounds were brought to the moon’s surface in great quantity in some unknown way. They don’t know how, but that it was done cannot be questioned.".

Now, what geologists have said this? Do they have science to back them up, or is it simply the "science" that Hoagland and his followers use? I'm thinking the latter, since no true scientist would say that something cannot be questioned. Why? That entirely defeats the purpose of science!

4. Water Vapor: On March 7, 1971, lunar instruments placed by the astronauts recorded a vapor cloud of water passing across the surface of the moon.I The cloud lasted 14 hours and covered an area of about 100 square miles.

Which instruments placed by which mission? I've heard of this, again from the "scientists," though no one else (actual scientists) seem to know anything about this. How have Hoagland and his followers managed to get past all of the others to find this data?

5. Magnetic Rocks: Moon rocks were magnetized. This is odd because there is no magnetic field on the moon itself. This could not have originated from a "close call" with Earth—such an encounter would have ripped the moon apart.

HAHA!

Wow, again the "scientists" are at work, eh? Well, then... No, none of the rocks were magnetised. Despite that, though, they do exhibit properties that lead to the possibility of a global magneticn field early in its existence. That's entirely from being magnetised though.

6. No Volcanoes: Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions.

Which craters were created internally? And there is a ton of evidence for volcanic activity on the Moon. They're called mares.

7. Moon Mascons: Mascons, which are large, dense, circular masses lying twenty to forty miles beneath the centers of the moon’s maria, "are broad, disk-shaped objects that could be possibly some kind of artificial construction. For huge circular disks are not likely to be beneath each huge maria, centered like bull’s-eyes in the middle of each, by coincidence or accident.".

Well, they're not "entered like bull’s-eyes in the middle of each (mare)." They're all over the Moon and were most likely caused by impacts from large, iron asteroids.

8. Seismic Activity: Hundreds of "moonquakes" are recorded each year that cannot be attributed to meteor strikes... These are probably not natural phenomena.

That's right, they're not all attributed to meteor impacts.

Another cause would be thermal stresses on the surface of Luna. At night temperatures go down to about 40 K, followed by a rise to nearly 400 K. This rapid cooling and heating will surely cause some damage. Also, these moonquakes can be caused by crater walls "slumping" in onto themselves. This would be a major landslide, and the dust thrown up from it (which would reach a lot higher and disperse more due to the lower gravity) could cause the appearance of a cloud above the crater.

9. Hollow Moon: The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean?

Well, it means taking comments by respectable and true scientists out of context in order to fit ones own agenda! What about the objects that are less dense than the Moon? Are they all hollow as well? No! This idea is just dumb and preposterous.

10. Moon Echoes: On November 20, 1969, the Apollo 12 crew jettisoned the lunar module ascent stage causing it to crash onto the moon. The LM’s impact (about 40 miles from the Apollo 12 landing site) created an artificial moonquake with startling characteristics—the moon reverberated like a bell for more than an hour.

Holy crap. Something accurate. I'm... astonished!

Anyway, the "like a bell" analogy is very misleading. It leads one to think that there were some loud echoes throughout Luna, which, in the realms of reality, there were not. Yes, they were detected, but it was only similar to reverbarations of an earthquake that can be detected after even a minor one for hours here on Earth.

This phenomenon was repeated with Apollo 13 (intentionally commanding the third stage to impact the moon)...

First I've heard of this... I thought the third stage burned up in the atmosphere with the rest of it, or at the least orbited the Earth for some time. I find it odd that they would expend extra fuel to do this. So, can you provide evidence to back up that this happened, please?

I have to get going to work now... I'll finish with this tonight.

Can't remember the exact website, but there was a program where you could drop in "moons" around a sun and attempt to create a stable orbit. It was fun trying to find the correct distance and velocity. The funny thing is if you just started throwind crazy moons up randomly a couple would always end up finding the perfect order just by chance. To me this just re-enforces the big bang theory.

I did find a similar program here, although it's not as good. www.geocities.com...

Heavier Elements on Surface: Normal planetary composition results in heavier elements in the core and lighter materials at the surface; not so with the moon.

The only "heavier" elements near the Moon's surface will have been deposited there by asteroid and meteorite impacts. The rest of the Moon is only partly differentiated, simply because it cooled much faster during the accretion process, and the various elements did not have time to fully separate. It is true that the Moon has a much lower density than Earth (3.42 compared to 5.52), but there is a very good explanation for this......

When the early Earth was hit by a Mars sized planet, much of the impacting object's core (in other words, it's heavier elements) were retained by Earth. A large percentage of the material that was blasted into Earth orbit was composed of the lighter mantle material (of both Earth and the impactor). When those chunks eventually coalesced to form the Moon, the overall density was much lower than that of Earth (due to the relative absence of iron and other metals).

Again, there's nothing unusual about it. The theory makes perfect sense.


[edit on 1-8-2006 by Mogget]

I think its an important point that for every orbit of different radii there is an exact velocity which will keep it in that orbit. It seems to me that the OP thinks that there is only one radius and velocity that will work but infact there are an infinate number.

I also REALLY have to make another point obout eclipses which I must have posted about 10 times now on ATS ... look up an annular eclipse and you will see that the moons disk is not always the same size as the suns. The moon is actually smaller than the suns and creates a ring of fire effect. I really wish people wouldnt base their posts on urban myths.

Originally posted by gfad
I really wish people wouldnt base their posts on urban myths.

Not all members are scientists working for NASA and I, like so many others, are allowed to express themselves freely here.


Here's the terms for the 3 types of eclipse as found on Space.com (not by hearsay or urban myth);

www.space.com...

Eclipse Terms
Partial eclipse
The Moon covers only part of the Sun.

Total eclipse
The Moon covers the entire disk of the Sun along a narrow path across the Earth.

Annular eclipse
The Moon is too far from Earth to completely cover the Sun. A thin ring of the Sun's disk surrounds the Moon.

-snip-


James C. White II, executive director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. "Yet a happy circumstance is that the Sun is also about 400 times farther from the Earth than the Moon."

This makes the Moon and Sun appear roughly the same size in the sky. When the Moon's orbit about the Earth takes it directly between the Sun and us, the Moon can obscure all or part of the Sun. Exactly what happens depends on minor changes in distance and position.

bolding mine.

Ok ...so what we now know through Space.com is that no-one knows how the moon got there, when it got there or why. It's all theory and speculation. Also, that the position of the moon is a 'happy circumstance' (which, by the way, still amazes me)

www.space.com...

So while the new view of the moon's past could be accurate, only more concrete evidence will provide a complete picture of how the moon came to be, Binder said.

Holy Schnikies there is a lot of misinformation here.

Posting a link and trying to relate it to your argument works well when you are discussing imaginary things--i.e. ALIENS, coke machine conspiracies and the dude hiding in the bushes on the back of a ten dollar bill--unfortunately when discussing science--something grounded in testable truth/fact--you yourself have to have a strong mental grip of the information before it is possible to make a relevent response to it.

Otherwise you get lots of links, lots of (gayness), and even more "how do you think we can show that science is wrong and it might be ALIENS!?!!?!'

I guess we may soon find out some actual facts pertaining to the moon, that is, if these discoveries doesn't remain "classified"...


Chandrayan-1

Launch Date: 2007-09-01

Chandrayaan-1 is an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) mission designed to orbit the Moon over a two year period with the objectives of upgrading and testing India's technological capabilities in space and returning scientific information on the lunar surface.


Chang'e 1
Lunar Orbiter
Launch Period: Late 2007
Agency: CAST - China
Chang'e 1 is planned to be the first of a series of Chinese missions to the Moon. The spacecraft will launch in late 2007 on a CZ-3A booster and orbit the Moon for a year to test the technology for future missions and to study the lunar environment and surface regolith.


Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
NSSDC ID: LUNARRO
Launch Date: 2008-10-01
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a Moon orbiting mission scheduled to launch in the fall of 2008. The first mission of NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, it is designed to map the surface of the Moon and characterize future landing sites in terms of terrain roughness, usable resources, and radiation environment with the ultimate goal of facilitating the return of humans to the Moon.



LUNAR-A
The Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) is developing its first lunar probe, LUNAR-A, as part of its Lunar Penetrator Programme. LUNAR-A is to be launched by the M-V launch vehicle (launch date TBD) and injected into low lunar orbit (200-300 km). The mission of LUNAR-A is to land two probes (penetrators) on the lunar surface in order to measure the travelling of seismic waves and heat flux. The results are expected to give some information and understanding of the lunar interior.

The two penetrators are planned to land in the equatorial region of the Moon, one on the near side and one on the far side..



SELENE
Launch Date: 2007-07-01
SELENE (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer) is a Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) lunar orbiter mission. The primary objective of the mission is a global survey of the Moon, obtaining data on elemental abundance, mineralogical composition, topography, geology, gravity, and the lunar and solar-terrestrial plasma environments and to develop critical technologies for future lunar exploration, such as lunar polar orbit injection, three-axis attitude stabilization, and thermal control.




[edit on 1-8-2006 by Purgatory]

[edit on 1-8-2006 by Purgatory]

LOL.

Hey cowboy, you might want to do a 'lil research about how many craft have already been there and how many are there right now; that's not to mention humans. My point is that there is an unbelievable amount of information about planetary formation, the formation of the moon, astronomy, astrophysics, and on and on and on. The best part is, much unlike most of the information on this website, it's true! Go out and read for yourself. It's very, very interesting stuff.


OK, you may now proceed with your "how come" questions again...

Originally posted by backtoreality
LOL.

Hey cowboy, you might want to do a 'lil research about how many craft have already been there and how many are there right now;

If you're referring to me, I'm well aware of how many crafts have been there, and what scientific data has so far been received. I'm also well aware to the fact of enough of "not sure yet" information that science has not yet been able to confirm, as well as the good amount of eye witness testimony and/or communications during landing from astronauts aside from Buzz. are you?...