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Loading contentThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite.
moon:the-moonDataset membership
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In the graph export: graph.json · graph.jsonld
Planned API: GET /api/v0/entities/moon:the-moon
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Asteria Scientific Review Process · verification: sourced · accurate
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth-largest moon in the Solar System; it is tidally locked, always presenting the same face to Earth.
Source: NASA (NSSDCA) — NASA Planetary Fact Sheet · Public domain (US Government work)
Reviewed by the internal Asteria Scientific Review Process — not an external institutional review. See the evidence framework and authority dashboard.
Real, source-backed references — primary papers first, then datasets and institutional sources. Formatted through the citation engine; nothing is fabricated.
NASA Goddard — NSSDCA
NASA Goddard — NSSDCA (n.d.). Moon Fact Sheet. NASA Goddard — NSSDCA. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html
@misc{cite:factsheet-moon-the-moon,
title = {Moon Fact Sheet},
organization = {NASA Goddard — NSSDCA},
year = {n.d.},
url = {https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html},
note = {Physical and orbital parameters for Moon.}
}NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech) (n.d.). JPL Horizons System. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech). https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/
@misc{cite:jpl-horizons,
title = {JPL Horizons System},
organization = {NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech)},
year = {n.d.},
url = {https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/},
note = {Authoritative Solar System ephemerides — the reference standard for high-precision Moon position (not fetched in v1).}
}NASA
NASA (n.d.). Earth's Moon — NASA Science. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/moon/
@misc{cite:nasa-moon,
title = {Earth's Moon — NASA Science},
organization = {NASA},
year = {n.d.},
url = {https://science.nasa.gov/moon/},
note = {NASA overview of the Moon: phases, the synodic month, and lunar facts.}
}NASA
NASA (n.d.). Moon — NASA Solar System Exploration. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/
@misc{cite:nasa-moon-the-moon,
title = {Moon — NASA Solar System Exploration},
organization = {NASA},
year = {n.d.},
url = {https://science.nasa.gov/},
note = {NASA overview of Moon.}
}United States Naval Observatory
United States Naval Observatory (n.d.). USNO Astronomical Applications Department. United States Naval Observatory. https://aa.usno.navy.mil/
@misc{cite:usno-astronomical-applications,
title = {USNO Astronomical Applications Department},
organization = {United States Naval Observatory},
year = {n.d.},
url = {https://aa.usno.navy.mil/},
note = {Solar and lunar coordinates, phase, and rise/set/twilight/transit methodology (the Astronomical Almanac); the public-domain formulae behind the computed Moon phase, the computed Sun & twilight times, and the computed moonrise/moonset and lunar position.}
}How The Moon connects across Asteria Star — scientific, cultural, and astrological links are kept separate.
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only world known to support life.
Apollo 11 was the NASA mission that in July 1969 first landed humans on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the lunar surface.
First lunar impact · USSR · launched 1959.
Lunar impact crater on The Moon.
Lunar mare (Apollo 11 landing site) on The Moon.
Giant lunar impact basin on The Moon.
Apollo 8 was the first crewed mission to leave Earth orbit and orbit the Moon, returning the famous 'Earthrise' photograph.
Apollo 13's planned lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen-tank explosion; the crew returned safely in a celebrated rescue.
Apollo 17 was the final crewed Apollo lunar landing, carrying the first scientist-astronaut to the Moon.
Artemis I was the uncrewed first flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft on a path around the Moon.
Luna 9 achieved the first soft landing on the Moon and returned the first images from the lunar surface.
Luna 17 delivered Lunokhod 1, the first robotic rover to operate on the surface of another world.
Chandrayaan-1 was India's first lunar mission, whose instruments helped confirm water on the Moon.
Chandrayaan-3 achieved the first soft landing near the Moon's south pole, making India the fourth nation to land on the Moon.
Chang'e 4 achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon.
Chang'e 5 returned the first lunar samples since the 1970s.
Danuri, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, is South Korea's first mission to the Moon.
A Greco-Roman astronomer whose Almagest codified the geocentric model that dominated astronomy for over a millennium.
Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer and physicist who pioneered telescopic astronomy, discovering the four largest moons of Jupiter.
'Earthrise' — Earth seen rising over the Moon, photographed by astronaut William Anders during Apollo 8 on 24 December 1968.
The first meteorite recognised as a piece of the Moon, recovered from Antarctica in 1982 — its match to Apollo samples proved that lunar rocks can be delivered to Earth as meteorites.
Pieces of the Moon flung to Earth by impacts, whose mineralogy matches the samples returned by the Apollo and Luna missions — a free supply of lunar rock from unsampled regions.
High-energy charged particles that stream through space near the speed of light. They come from the Sun (solar energetic particles) and from beyond the Solar System (galactic cosmic rays), and are a primary radiation hazard for astronauts.
Extremely energetic charged particles from outside the Solar System — the remnants of supernovae and other violent events. They pervade deep space, are hard to shield against, and pose the dominant long-term radiation risk on missions to Mars.
Bursts of high-energy particles accelerated by solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Unlike the steady galactic cosmic rays, SEP events are sudden and can deliver a dangerous radiation dose to astronauts within hours.
Tiny natural particles — grains of comet and asteroid dust — moving at tens of kilometres per second. They erode surfaces and can puncture spacecraft; together with orbital debris they define the impact hazard for spacecraft.
The vast lava-filled 'Sea of Showers', one of the largest lunar maria, occupying a giant ancient impact basin on the Moon's near side.
A young, prominent lunar impact crater with terraced walls and bright rays of ejecta, a classic example of a complex crater.
The Soviet Luna 2 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another world, impacting the Moon.
The Soviet Luna 9 makes the first soft landing on the Moon and returns the first pictures from its surface.
The crew of Apollo 8 become the first humans to leave Earth orbit and circle the Moon, returning the famous Earthrise photograph.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon while Michael Collins orbits above — the first humans to set foot on another world.
The final Apollo landing; Eugene Cernan is, to date, the last person to walk on the Moon, and geologist Harrison Schmitt the only scientist to do so.
The uncrewed Artemis I sends the Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back on the first flight of NASA's program to return humans to the lunar surface.
India's Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing near the Moon's south pole, making India the fourth nation to land on the Moon and the first near the south-polar region.
Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, the first humans to walk on another world.
The crew of Apollo 13 travelled farther from Earth than any humans before or since, swinging around the far side of the Moon on a free-return trajectory after their spacecraft was crippled.
Mining and extracting water and volatiles — from the permanently-shadowed craters at the lunar poles and from water-bearing carbonaceous asteroids such as Bennu. Water is the keystone resource: it provides drinking water, breathable oxygen, radiation shielding, and rocket propellant.
Producing breathable oxygen and oxidiser from local materials — from the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere or from oxygen-bearing lunar regolith. NASA's MOXIE experiment on the Perseverance rover demonstrated making oxygen on Mars.
Working the loose surface soil of the Moon and Mars — sintering or melting it into building material, extracting metals and oxygen, and using it for radiation shielding — turning the ground itself into a resource.
Using robots to build and maintain infrastructure in space and on other worlds with little or no human presence — laying landing pads, assembling habitats, and constructing solar farms before crews arrive.
A sustained human outpost on the Moon — habitats, power, and ISRU plants supporting long stays — the surface counterpart of the Gateway station, and a proving ground for the technologies of a Mars base.
An electromagnetic catapult that accelerates payloads to high speed along a track — proposed especially on the Moon, where the low gravity and airlessness would let a mass driver launch mined material into space without rockets.
Compact nuclear reactors to power a Moon or Mars base through the long lunar night and the dim Martian winter, when solar power is not enough. NASA's KRUSTY test demonstrated the underlying Kilopower reactor technology on the ground.
The first crewed flight of NASA's Artemis program — a crew of four flying around the Moon and back aboard Orion, the first humans beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.
The mission intended to return humans to the surface of the Moon — the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17, targeting the water-ice-bearing south-polar region.
An explorer of the moons of the Solar System — from Earth's Moon to the ocean worlds of Jupiter and Saturn — organised by their host planet and physical character.
What is worth observing tonight from a given place, drawn together from the platform's computed twilight, Moon, and planet positions. The plan updates with the observer's clock and location, which stay on the device.
The Moon's phase, illumination, and rise and set for a chosen night — the single biggest factor in deep-sky observing. Computed, not assumed.
The window of real darkness on a given night — after astronomical twilight ends and while the Moon is down. The hours that matter most for faint targets.
Amalthea is a small, reddish inner moon of Jupiter orbiting closer to the planet than the Galilean moons.
Ariel is a moon of Uranus and the brightest of its major satellites.
Callisto is the outermost of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and is heavily cratered.
Charon is the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, roughly half Pluto's diameter.
Deimos is the smaller and outer of the two natural satellites of Mars.
Dione is an icy moon of Saturn marked by bright wispy fractures across its surface.
Facts on this topic will be cited from these primary and reference sources.
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.