What are the lines on the surface of the moon?

The moon’s terminator is the dividing line marking the edge between day and night on the moon. It’s sometimes called the twilight zone, because it marks where the sun is either rising or setting on the moon and so – along the terminator line – the moon’s landscape is in a twilight state.

Why does the moon look like lines?

Anyone glancing at a photo of the full Moon spots one feature above all: the giant system of rays that spread out from a point in the southern hemisphere. These look a bit like grid lines on a map – so much so that people sometimes ask whether this is the Moon’s south pole.

What are the dark lines visible on the lunar surface?

The surface of the Moon is covered in huge dark spots, visible from Earth even with the naked eye. These patches are known as maria – a Latin word meaning ‘seas’. Prof Sara Russell, a planetary scientist at the Museum, works with rock samples and high-resolution images to study the history and geology of the Moon.

What can the lines around the craters on the moon tell us?

Some Craters have Rays which extend out from the site of impact (best example: Tycho on the Moon), while others show splash-like features, like the Martian crater above. The difference in ejecta profiles can tell us about the makeup of the material on the planet’s surface.

What are rays on the Moon?

Lunar rays are filamentous, high-albedo deposits occurring radial or subradial to impact craters. “Immaturity” rays are bright due to the presence of fresh, high-albedo material.

Where is the terminator line?

moving
A terminator or twilight zone is a moving line that divides the daylit side and the dark night side of a planetary body. The terminator is defined as the locus of points on a planet or moon where the line through the center of its parent star is tangent.

Has there ever been blue moon?

A “Blue Moon” is a fairly infrequent phenomenon involving the appearance of an additional full moon within a given period. There are roughly 29.5 days between full moons, making it unusual for two full moons to fit into a 30 or 31-day-long month. (This means that February will never have a Blue Moon.)

What are the markings on the moon?

Those spots are called maria, from the Latin word for sea, because early astronomers mistakenly thought they were lunar seas (they’re actually volcanic plains). The smooth and dark maria cover 17 percent of the surface of the moon. Almost all of them are visible from Earth.

What causes rayed crater?

Their results suggest that crater rays are formed due to the interaction of a shockwave that is generated when the ball (representing a meteorite) strikes the surface. If the surface is initially smooth, this creates a similarly smooth shockwave that disperses the ejected grains evenly — no rays.

What side does the Moon appear on a lunar map?

In most cases, a lunar map will be oriented to show the moon as it would appear to your unaided eye or through binoculars: with its north side up. However, be aware that many astronomical telescopes provide an inverted (upside-down) view, and some even give a reversed (mirror-image) view.

How did we get the first look at the Moon?

The Moon’s Surface. From lunar orbit, astronauts pointed cameras out the window of their spacecraft to capture photos of the moon’s surface. The closest look we’ve had at the moon came from the launch of NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s. Between 1967 and 1972, a series of missions landed the first men on the moon.

Can you see all the features of the Moon?

Nearly all of the major lunar features can be seen. The moon is not sufficiently bright to cause loss of detail through glare. As the line of darkness – called the terminator – recedes, features near the border stand out in bold relief; the shadows become stronger and details are more easily seen.

What can you see on the Moon with binoculars?

Through binoculars you can see that the moon’s surface has mountains, plains and craters: large hollows with ridges around them. The maria (pronounced MAH-re-ah; the plural of mare ), which form the dark patches, were once thought to be oceans and seas.