IN THE BEGINNING
Over the last century and a quarter, three theories developed about where the moon came from. The first revolutionary idea in 1878 was from George Darwin, son of the famous evolutionist. He surmised the earth had whirled itself into a frenzy early on, and ended up spinning off a chunk into space. (There are some claims that the chunk was originally in the major depression now known as the Pacific Ocean).
American astronomer Thomas Jefferson Jackson See announced in 1909 that the moon was a wandering planet, snared by the earth's atmosphere. Astronomer Eduoard Roche couldn't see See's point. He figured that the earth and moon had formed at roughly the same time, from the same materials that formed all the planets in our solar system. The trio of theories became known as the "Big Three", or Daughter: fission, Spouse: capture, and Sister: coaccretion. The problem in accepting any of them, was that theory couldn't hold up to scientific reasoning.
Fission fell down on the job, because the earth would have needed a lightning fast rotational speed. Plus, the Pacific Ocean basin is less than 70 million years old. Capture also escapes credibility, when you consider how unlikely it is that a planet would just mosey over and dance around earth instead of slamming into it. Not to mention the similarities in oxygen-isotopes, which indicate that the two birthed around the same time, if not from the same "parents". Coaccretion coalesced a lot of objections. The earth's core comprises 30% of its mass compared to the moon's 3%. The earth contains iron, the moon does not. Lunar samples indicate much of it may have once been molten, where there is no proof the Earth ever got that hot under the crust.
Enter...the Big Whack. Not quite the Big Bang theory, but just as interesting. The initial idea arose from the ashes of tests that disproved the other three theories. Something... a large celestial body, whacked Earth hard enough to blast off a considerable portion of its mantle into space, coming apart at the seams during the duet. The resulting blend of material eventually drifted together and formed the moon. But wait! Scientific studies in the mid 90s estimated that the size of the impactor would have to be roughly 2-3 times that of Mars, which would send Earth into a hyper fast rotation. Enter another Whacker, a second impact, which slowed Earth's rotation back down.
While the Big Whack is not perfect in all aspects, it can moon the other three for a reasonable hypothesis.
BRIGHT LIGHTS AND BLUE MOONS
While you are gazing adoringly into your beloved's eyes under the bright moon, did you ever wonder why it was bright? Is the Man in the Moon's face really squeaky clean and white? Nuh-uh. The lighter areas of the moon's surface, are composed of breccia, rocks formed from the fused fragments of other rocks. They are grey, not white. As a whole, the surface of the moon is a poor reflector, able to bounce back only 7% of the sun's light. Thank those stars in your eyes, for expanding in reaction to the low light levels, and making them hyper sensitive to even the faintest glows from the heavens.
Aha! That doesn't explain why you can see the moon in daytime, does it? No, but it is related. The moon is visible as long as the brightness of the atmosphere is less than the amount of light reflected from the moon's surface. Looking near sunrise, and in the new moon phase, will not only get you a glimpse of the lunar sphere, but stars as well.
At times, you might even wonder if the moon has had a celestial martini or two. It actually wobbles in its slightly non-circular orbit, so that it occasionally exposes its backside by a few degrees. By the way, there is no dark side. All sides of the moon get sunlight half the time. Of course if you did want a little cool refreshment, while bobbing around the dusty old lunar surface, you could just bop on down to the South Pole, whose craters are perennially shaded from the Sun's full strength. Surveys in the late 1990s projected water in the form of ice, remains in the depressions from comet collisions.
If your chances of getting on the next lunar mission are once in a blue moon, you better enrol in astronaut school posthaste. A blue moon occurs when two full moons fall within a calendar month. Since a full moon occurs every 291/2 days, if one falls on the first or second of a month, there will be two before the calendar flips over. The last such occurrence was November of 2001. The next is due in July of 2004, and after that you'll be cooling your heels until 2018!
MADNESS AND MINUTAE
Where else would we get the word "lunatic", except from the Latin "luna" for moon? But does the theory of moon madness hold any water? Yes, but the theory has a few leaks. What "proof" has been gathered by scientific studies, relates most times to specific locations and not blanket behaviour. One study found a dramatic rise in admissions to New York psychiatric hospitals after a full moon. Another cited agitation in mental patients around the same time. Why the moon should affect your moods, has often been tied to tides. The moon's drawing effect on the earth's water, was surmised to hold the same sway over the water laden body and brain of humans.
Of course, there is always our howling, hairy friend, the werewolf. Wooooooo! Werewolves exist in folklore and legend around the world. They are generally thought to begin their "transformation" in the two or three days leading up to the full moon, and hit their stride when the moon reaches its peak. In some societies, people used a salve to turn themselves into wolves. The ingredients were hallucinogenic, and while their behaviour may have been loopy and lupine, they were still human. The Medieval period saw people talk themselves into believing they were fanged at the full moon, all due to mass hysteria over the subject of werewolves, alone. They were at least better off than the defendants in 30,000 werewolf trials held in France between 1520 and 1630. Their problem was not the moon or even hysterics. It was mold. Rye bread being a staple of poor people's diets, they tended to end up with grain developing the ergot fungus over a long winter. Ergot, a hallucinogenic is now believed to have caused the outbreak of 'owling.
For the average moon gazer, who neither howls nor needs to shave their thumbs, there is always the intriguing question of "what is the man in the moon?" It's no man, it's a mare. Or more correctly, mares, the the dark, basaltic material resembling earth lava, which flowed from the moon's core, into the pock marked surface when it cracked, settling into the craters, and forming large, dark grey areas to the human eye. These "patterns" have variously been interpreted as a face (the man in the moon), a girl reading a book, and other interesting and improbable images.
Only a few very lucky men (and NO women) got to touch the surface of the moon. Almost everyone alive at the time, remembers who the first was, but quick- who was the last man on the moon? Eugene Cernan left the final footprint in 1972.
But if one guy has his way, and we ever do get an interplanetary transit system, you'll be able to visit your home away from home on the moon! Dennis Hope, a California entrepreneur, slipped through a loophole in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which forbids nations (but not individuals) from appropriating any celestial body. (The 1979 Space Treaty which would have sewn up the hole, was never signed by any space faring nations.) He cheerfully sold some 300,000 lots to future thinking homeowners and present thinking money magnates. The 1,777.58 acre ranches which sold in the year 2000 at .15, worked out to about a penny an acre. Hope then began signing up international agents (for substantial fees) who then resold the lunar lots. Admitting the stunt began purely as a joke, it has made 1.6 million dollars in the last 20 years.
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