We met here on this modest page "Agatha Christie" and "Poirot" and "Holmes".. we met "Einstein" and "Bohr" and "Fleming" and "Pasteur".. we met "Schrodinger" and his cat.. and we met the "300" fighters who carried their souls in their hands and blocked the pass of "the Hot Gates" against nearly a million enemy fighters..
We saw many things and read many things.. we roamed the world and travelled to the farthest ends of the Earth.. and now the time has come for us to rise from Earth to the Moon...
Our Moon.. the one we see at night.. and lovers flirt with.. and hunters use its light.. and it used to run alongside us next to the cars when we were small and travelling on a highway.. Some see a smile drawn on the face of the Moon.. unfortunately I have never seen it.. I feel that on the face of the Moon there is an expression of amazement and astonishment..
The Moon.. the satellite that follows the Earth and revolves around it all the time.. and it has no moon other than it.. unlike the other planets in our solar system..
This [solar system](https://alaafans.com/series/solar-system "solar system") is a sun.. around it a group of planets and moons around the planets revolving in an imaginary path called an orbit or "orbit Orbit".. it is called a "solar system Solar system".. and it is part of something bigger called a "galaxy Galaxy"...
The word "satellite", by the way, does not only mean artificial satellites.. there is a "natural satellite natural satellite".. which is the moon.. the one that revolves in the orbit of a planet and remains its follower for its whole life.. The word is originally Arabic.. the word "satl" in Arabic means "follower".. because the Moon is a "follower" of the planet Earth.. it is not a planet in itself...
This Moon in ancient Egypt is the "Eye of Horus Horus".. which "Seth Seth" the god of the desert tore out during their struggle.. it rose and turned into a moon that lights up the world at night.. before "Thoth" healed "Horus" and granted him a new eye.. in order to preserve the eternal struggle between good and evil in existence...
It features in many tales and stories and legends.. the story of "Horus" is not the first of them.. nor is the legend of an ordinary man of the salt of the earth.. who turns into a wolf when the Moon turns full.. the last of them...
The distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,400 kilometres.. you can reach the Moon in a second and a half.. if you set off at the speed of light..
It did not exist.. and it is supposed that it formed a little while after the Earth.. around 4.5 billion years ago.. when the Earth collided with a planet called "Theia Theia"..
"Theia" was a planet roughly the size of Mars.. and it is supposed that it was walking about in our solar system.. revolving, but its path was deviated.. it had an inclination and was constantly deviating.. until it collided with the Earth.. it collided with the Earth face to face, a terrible, horrifying shock.. but she was the stronger one.. she tore it to pieces and turned it into fragments and the core of "Theia" merged into the core of the Earth.. that is why our hot Earth core is bigger than it should be for a body of its size..
From the fragments of the collision two moons formed.. they later merged and became one moon..
So are there other moons besides ours in the world? Yes, there are, and we will get to them later one by one, them and their planets..
The geology of the Moon is like the geology of the Earth.. it has our minerals.. and on its surface there are large craters that were at one time lakes of lava on its surface.. long ago, in the age of the dinosaurs here, there were volcanoes erupting on the Moon.. there is an entire branch that studies this subject called "Volcanism on the Moon Volcanism on the Moon"...
There are no lakes on the Moon, nor seas, nor rivers.. water on the surface of the Moon cannot exist as it is on Earth because it breaks down and decomposes through something called "photodissociation Photodissociation".. but there are traces of ice on the surface of the Moon.. and water possibly exists deep down..
And if water exists anywhere.. then some form of life may indeed exist..
The surface gravity of the Moon is 16.6% of the surface gravity of the Earth.. meaning if your weight is 100 kilograms and you went to the Moon your weight would be about 17 kilograms..
There are gases on the surface of the Moon.. as long as it has gravity then it attracts gases too, like anything else.. but these gases are extremely negligible compared to any planet that has an atmosphere like ours.. therefore.. scientifically the Moon is considered to have no atmosphere surrounding it, only a vacuum..
Many lovers dreamed of living on the Moon.. amid the light and the glow and the isolation and the beauty.. and what is more beautiful than isolation with your beloved?
But unfortunately you cannot do that except in your imagination.. because you cannot breathe on the Moon since there is no air.. and there is no atmospheric pressure.. because there is no atmosphere..
Therefore, without the well-known space suit.. you can live on the Moon for 15 seconds.. after which you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen.. you will not even be able to hold your breath for minutes as on Earth.. because you will be subject to the difference in pressure since there is no atmospheric pressure.. and your lungs expand against your will and your body fluids leak out of you and gas bubbles form in your blood..
And you die...
Exactly like the diver who came up from a great depth under great pressure to the surface of the water all at once into a lower pressure..
We only see one face of the Moon.. because the Moon has put a "lock Lock" on us with one face..
Do you know those films where you see fighter jets "locking" onto each other before firing a missile and therefore no matter how the opponent manoeuvres.. the missile keeps manoeuvring behind him? The Moon has put a lock on us like that called "tidal locking Tidal locking".. sometimes it is called "gravitational locking gravitational locking"...
Meaning no matter how the Moon revolves around us we only see one face of it.. it revolves while giving us the same face constantly.. the face that lights up when the sun's rays are reflected on it.. The Moon does not shine on its own as many people understand.. not like the Sun.. no.. the Moon reflects the sun's rays and lights up our night...
Because of this way the Moon rotates.. a single day on the Moon equals about 29 and a half of our days..
Meaning if you travelled to the Moon on the 1st of Ramadan.. and stayed one day.. you would come back to Earth and find yourself on the day of Eid...
The lunar day on the Moon is the same as the lunar month on Earth..
Meaning if you left your son on Earth at the age of one day and moved instantly.. and spent a month on the Moon and came back.. you would come back and find him two years and 4 months old...
The movement of the Moon has an effect on the tides in our seas and oceans because of its gravity.. and there are studies under research that this weak gravity of its during its cycle also has an effect on the moods of humans and animals and their behaviour as well..
So what about the other face.. the "dark face"..?
In truth it is not dark.. and it is not called "the dark side of the Moon" because of darkness.. its real name is "the far side of the Moon Far side of the Moon" which we never see from Earth.. and the word "dark" is meant to say that it is "unknown".. hidden, we do not see it...
What happens if this Moon exploded or vanished? The oceans on Earth would rage and drown us.. the climate would be disturbed and we would lose plant life and then we would lose animal life and we would find nothing to eat.. so famines would strike us and epidemics would spread from the corpses everywhere..
And then the gravitational belt of the [solar system](https://alaafans.com/series/solar-system "solar system") would be disturbed.. because all these celestial bodies are held together by an invisible belt of gravity..
The gravity of the Sun holds the planets around it and the planets hold the moons and the moons are held together with everything..
Everything is set by a balance.. and were it not for this balance everything would collapse..
And the Earth would deviate from its path...
And it would begin to collide with the rest of the planets..
Or plunge into the heart of the Sun..
That is why the Moon has international agreements that protect it.. and the states that invaded space are obliged to confront any aggression against the Moon.. from a giant meteor that could destroy it or knock it out of its path. Or nuclear explosions.. or any disaster of that sort..
It is also completely forbidden to use the Moon as a military base or to land weapons on its surface.. or for any purpose other than peaceful purposes...
How many people have contemplated the Moon and then sat down and written a poem? And how many people have turned the Moon of their thoughts to memories of late nights amid the fields or travelling on a highway at night? How many a soldier has stayed awake at night amid the cold of the desert with the Moon as his only companion?
The Moon is the closest celestial body to us.. therefore we passed by it first.. but it is completely different from "Mercury Mercury".. the smallest of the planets and the closest to our sun.. which we will talk about later and the talk will have a continuation...
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References
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1 - Wieczorek, M. (2006). "The constitution and structure of the lunar interior". Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry. 60 (1): 221-364...
2 - Lang, Kenneth R. (2011), The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System, 2nd ed...
3 - B. Gladman; et al. (1996). "Synchronous Locking of Tidally Evolving Satellites". Icarus. 122: 166-192...