75 Moon Rocks-Mid

Moon Rocks FOCUS Question How do rocks on the Moon compare with rocks on Earth?

Visiting the Moon In 1961, John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States, said we should send a spaceship to the Moon. This led to NASA's Apollo Program. Many of the missions carried astronauts into space. Six of those missions took astronauts to the surface of the Moon! The Moon is very different from Earth. There are no green prairies, tall forests, or deep oceans. There are no blue skies or clouds. The Moon does not have air. There is very little water, just a small amount of ice. The Moon has no plants or animals. Wowser! Without wind or water, there is no soil erosion on the Moon. A footprint in the dust might last millions of years!

The Moon's Landforms The Moon has hills and tall mountains. The tall mountains are called highlands. It has low valleys and flat plains. The Moon's surface also has wide, smooth areas of volcanic rock. From Earth, they look like seas of dark water. Each of these areas is called a mare (MAH-ray). The word mare is Latin for "sea." The Moon's maria (MAH-ree-uh plural for mare) were once thought to be bodies of water. There are pits called craters (KRAY-turz) on the Moon. Meteorites hitting the surface of a planet or a moon cause craters. Because the Moon has no atmosphere to stop them, meteorites hit its surface.

Moon Glass and Dust The force of a meteorite's impact (the moment when it hits the ground) makes a lot of heat and pressure. Sometimes the heat and pressure melt rock and dust to make impact breccias (BREH-chee-uhz). An impact breccia is a rock made from different kinds of rock pieces that melt together. These impact breccias help scientists learn how fast and hard the meteorite struck the Moon's surface. If you stepped onto the Moon, you would not find soil. You would find gray dust and rocks called regolith (REG-uh-lith). This is dust from meteorite impacts. The regolith is unlike Earth's soil. There is no material from living things in it.

More Moon Rocks Long ago, the Moon had magma deep underground. Lava flowed on the Moon's surface. That is why most Moon rocks are igneous, like rocks from Earth's volcanoes. Basalt (buh-SALT) on the Moon's surface is similar to basalt from some of Earth's volcanoes. Anorthosite (uh-NOR-thuh-site) is an igneous rock that is common in the Moon's highlands. Anorthosite is rare on Earth. The Moon has cooled over time. There are no longer volcanic eruptions or lava flows on its surface. There is no weathering because there is no wind or flowing water. So, the Moon has no rock cycle. The rocks do not change much over time.

Collecting Moon Rocks Apollo astronauts collected rocks on six different trips to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s. They used scoops, tongs, drills, and rakes. to collect rocks They also used tubes to collect rocks from below the surface. Astronauts also collected rocks from craters. Impacts expose rocks that are below the surface. Impacts also blast deep rocks from the ground. They can be found on the surface around a crater. Math Moment Apollo astronauts collected 380 kilograms of Moon rocks. One kilogram is equal to 2.2 pounds. How many pounds of Moon rocks did the astronauts collect?