Page 18 - Life beyond the Karman

The Moon
In 1610, Galileo Galilei discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter. The Moon, known as Luna in Latin, is the main adjective for all things Moon-related (lunar).
The Moon moderates Earth’s wobble on its axis, resulting in a relatively stable climate. Recent discoveries have shown that the Moon contains water ice, making it more hospitable for potential human colonization, with the highest concentrations found within darkened craters at the poles.
Similar to Earth, the Moon has a day side and a night side, which change as the Moon rotates. The Sun always illuminates half of the Moon, while the other half remains dark. With a radius of about 1,080 miles (1,740 kilometers), the Moon is less than a third of the width of Earth.
The Moon orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), which is about 30 times the diameter of Earth. The Moon appears to have different shapes, known as lunar phases, as viewed from Earth due to its tidal locking with Earth, which means the same hemisphere always faces Earth.
In common usage, the four major phases of the moon are the new moon, the first quarter, the full moon, and the last quarter. The four minor phases are waxing crescent, waxing gibbous, waning gibbous, and waning crescent.
The Moon has a very thin and weak atmosphere called an exosphere. This exosphere does not provide any protection from the Sun’s radiation or impacts from meteoroids. Additionally, the Moon has a very weak magnetic field in comparison to Earth, which has a magnetic field thousands of times stronger.
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LIFE BEYOND THE KÁRMÁN LINE - OUTER SPACE