The Moon. Image credit: ESA

Think you know everything there is to know about the Moon? Think again! Here are 10 interesting facts about the Moon. Some you might already know, and some will be totally new to you. Enjoy!

01. The Moon formed out of the Earth

Scientists now think that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized object crashed into our planet about 4.5 billion years ago. The collision was so large that a huge spray of material was ejected into space. The orbiting ring of debris gathered itself into a sphere, and formed the Moon. How do we know that this is how the Moon probably formed? The Moon seems to be much less dense than the Earth and lacks a lot of iron in its core. Scientists think that the Moon is made up of the upper crust material, which has mostly lower density, than the composition of the Earth. 09 more after the break...

02. The Moon only shows one face to the Earth

Although the Moon used to rotate in the sky compared to our point of view, it has been slowing down billions of years. And at some point in the distant past it just stopped turning from our perspective. The Earth’s gravity holds the Moon in orbit, but it pulls differently at various parts of the Moon. Over a long period, gravity slowed down the Moon’s rotation so that it finally stopped, and always displayed one face to the Earth. A similar situation has happened with most of the large moons in the Solar System. In fact, in the case of Pluto and Charon, but objects are tidally locked to each other, so they present only one face to the other.

03. The Moon is slowly drifting away

Although the orbit of the Moon seems nice and stable, our only natural satellite is actually drifting away from us at a rate of 4 centimeters a year. This is happening because of the conservation of momentum in the orbit of the Earth. In about 50 billion years from now, the Moon will stop moving away from us. It will settle into a stable orbit, taking about 47 days to go around the Earth (it takes 27.3 days today). At that point, the Earth and the Moon will be tidally locked to each other. It will look like the Moon is always in the same spot in the sky. Of course, the Sun is expected to consume the Earth in about 5 billion years, so this event may not happen.

04. The Moon looks the same size as the Sun

This is an amazing coincidence. From our perspective here on Earth, but the Moon and the Sun look approximately the same size in the sky. Of course, the Sun is much much bigger than the Moon. The Sun happens to be 400 times larger than the Moon, but it’s also 400 times further away. This wasn’t always the case. Billions of years ago, the Moon was much closer than the Sun, and would have looked larger in the sky. And the Moon is moving away from us, so in the distant future, the Moon will look much smaller than the Sun.

05. The Moon causes most of the tides… but not all

You might know that the tides on Earth are caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon. But it’s not the only thing pulling at the Earth’s water, the Sun is helping out too. This is why we get very high and low tides from time to time. When the gravity of the Moon and the Sun line up, we get the biggest and smallest tides. Did you know that the Moon is also pulling at the crust of the Earth causing it to bulge up? You actually move a few meters every time the Moon is overhead, but you just don’t notice.

06. Gravity on the Moon is only 17% of the Earth

Want an easy way to lose some weight? Take a trip to the Moon and stand on its surface. Since the pull of gravity on the Moon is only 17% the pull of gravity on the Earth, you’ll feel much lighter. Just imagine, if you weighed 100 kg on the Earth, you would feel like you only weighed 17 kg on Earth. You would be able to jump 6 times further and carry objects 6 times as heavy. In fact, you had wings attached to your arms, you could even fly around inside a dome on the Moon under just your own muscle power.

07. The official name for the Moon is… the Moon

I know it’s kind of confusing, but the only real name for the Earth’s Moon[ is “the Moon”. When the Moon was given its name, astronomers didn’t know that there were moons orbiting other planets. And so they just called it the Moon. Now that we know there are other moons, it all comes down to the capitalization. The Earth’s moon is referred as “the Moon”, with a capital “M”. Other moons are given a lowercase “m” to show the difference.

08. The Moon is the 5th largest natural satellite in the Solar System

You might think that the Moon is the largest satellite in the Solar System. I mean look at it, it’s huge! But there are actually larger moons in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter’s Ganymede (5,262 km), followed by Saturn’s Titan, Jupiter’s Callisto, Jupiter’s Io, and finally, the Earth’s Moon with a mean diameter of 3475 km.

09. Only 12 people have ever stepped onto the surface of the Moon

Only a tiny group of astronauts have ever set foot on the surface of the Moon. These were the astronauts on board the Apollo missions going from 1969 to 1972. The first person to ever walk on the Moon was Neil Armstrong. And the last person on the Moon was Gene Cernan, who followed his partner Jack Schmitt into the lunar lander on December 14, 1972.

10. And we’re going back to the Moon

NASA has been given the mission to return humans to the Moon, and set up a permanent research station. At the time of this writing, astronauts are expected to set foot on the surface of the Moon again in 2019.

The United States spends more on its military than rest of the top 15 nations with the highest military expenditure. The rest of the list includes China ($119 bn), UK ($59.6 bn), France ($59.3bn), Russia ($58.7bn), Japan ($54.5bn), Germany ($45.2bn), Saudi Arabia ($45.2bn), India ($41.3bn), Italy ($37bn), Brazil ($33.5bn), South Korea ($27.6bn), Australia ($24bn), Canada ($22.8bn) and Turkey ($17.5bn). The US spends $698 billion. (Figures courtesy Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).

The total known land area occupied by US bases and facilities is 15,654 square miles — bigger than Washington DC, Massachusetts, and New Jersey combined. 11 more after the break...

By 2033, the US will be paying $59 billion a year to its veterans injured in the wars.

In 2007, the amount of money labeled ‘wasted’ or ‘lost’ in Iraq — $11 billion — could pay 220,000 teachers salaries.

Defence spending is higher today than at any time since the height of World War II.

The yearly cost of stationing one soldier in Iraq could feed 60 American families.

Each day in Afghanistan costs the government more than it did to build the entire Pentagon.

In 2008, the Pentagon spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned in a year.

Decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US Defence Department still has more than 40 generals, admirals or civilian equivalents based in Europe.

The amount the government has spent compensating radiation victims of nuclear testing ($1.5 billion) could fully educate 13,000 American kids.

The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

The US has 5 per cent of the world’s population — but almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure.

The human body is a great, sweaty, fluid-filled machine, moving and mixing chemicals with precision and coordination, making everything from memories to mucus. Here we explore some of the complex, beautiful or just plain gross mysteries of how you function.

10. Your Stomach Secretes Corrosive Acid

There's one dangerous liquid no airport security can confiscate from you: It's in your gut. Your stomach cells secrete hydrochloric acid, a corrosive compound used to treat metals in the industrial world. It can pickle steel, but mucous lining the stomach wall keeps this poisonous liquid safely in the digestive system, breaking down lunch. 09 more after the break...

09. Body Position Affects Your Memory

Can't remember your anniversary, hubby? Try getting down on one knee. Memories are highly embodied in our senses. A scent or sound may evoke a distant episode from one's childhood. The connections can be obvious (a bicycle bell makes you remember your old paper route) or inscrutable. A recent study helps decipher some of this embodiment. An article in the January 2007 issue of Cognition reports that episodes from your past are remembered faster and better while in a body position similar to the pose struck during the event.

08. Bones Break (Down) to Balance Minerals

In addition to supporting the bag of organs and muscles that is our body, bones help regulate our calcium levels. Bones contain both phosphorus and calcium, the latter of which is needed by muscles and nerves. If the element is in short supply, certain hormones will cause bones to break downeupping calcium levels in the bodyeuntil the appropriate extracellular concentration is reached.

07. Much of a Meal is Food For Thought

Though it makes up only 2 percent of our total body weight, the brain demands 20 percent of the body's oxygen and calories. To keep our noggin well-stocked with resources, three major cerebral arteries are constantly pumping in oxygen. A blockage or break in one of them starves brain cells of the energy they require to function, impairing the functions controlled by that region. This is a stroke.

06. Thousands of Eggs Unused by Ovaries

When a woman reaches her late 40s or early 50s, the monthly menstrual cycle that controls her hormone levels and readies ova for insemination ceases. Her ovaries have been producing less and less estrogen, inciting physical and emotional changes across her body. Her underdeveloped egg follicles begin to fail to release ova as regularly as before. The average adolescent girl has 34,000 underdeveloped egg follicles, although only 350 or so mature during her life (at the rate of about one per month). The unused egg follicles then deteriorate. With no potential pregnancy on the horizon, the brain can stop managing the release of ova.

05. Puberty Reshapes Brain Structure, Makes for Missed Curfews

We know that hormone-fueled changes in the body are necessary to encourage growth and ready the body for reproduction. But why is adolescence so emotionally unpleasant? Hormones like testosterone actually influence the development of neurons in the brain, and the changes made to brain structure have many behavioral consequences. Expect emotional awkwardness, apathy and poor decision-making skills as regions in the frontal cortex mature.

04. Cell Hairs Move Mucus

Most cells in our bodies sport hair-like organelles called cilia that help out with a variety of functions, from digestion to hearing. In the nose, cilia help to drain mucus from the nasal cavity down to the throat. Cold weather slows down the draining process, causing a mucus backup that can leave you with snotty sleeves. Swollen nasal membranes or condensation can also cause a stuffed schnozzle.

03. Big Brains Cause Cramped Mouths

Evolution isn't perfect. If it were, we might have wings instead of wisdom teeth. Sometimes useless features stick around in a species simply because they're not doing much harm. But wisdom teeth weren't always a cash crop for oral surgeons. Long ago, they served as a useful third set of meat-mashing molars. But as our brains grew our jawbone structure changed, leaving us with expensively overcrowded mouths.

02. The World Laughs with You

Just as watching someone yawn can induce the behavior in yourself, recent evidence suggests that laughter is a social cue for mimicry. Hearing a laugh actually stimulates the brain region associated with facial movements. Mimicry plays an important role in social interaction. Cues like sneezing, laughing, crying and yawning may be ways of creating strong social bonds within a group.

01. Your Skin Has Four Colors

All skin, without coloring, would appear creamy white. Near-surface blood vessels add a blush of red. A yellow pigment also tints the canvas. Lastly, sepia-toned melanin, created in response to ultraviolet rays, appears black in large amounts. These four hues mix in different proportions to create the skin colors of all the peoples of Earth.

16 Circle Beard

What This Says About You: That you like the idea of having facial hair, but you’re not really willing to commit completely to the idea. You’re fairly middle of the road, probably pretty boring and there’s a good chance you at least dabble with the acoustic guitar.

Typical Quote: “Kurt Cobain was just so, like, you know, wounded. Say, why don’t you take off your shirt while we rap some more?”

Experimentation is a part of becoming a man. I mean haven’t you ever wondered what it would feel like to have those coarse wiry hairs dangling all over your lips or to have that ultimate symbol of manliness spread all over your face, keeping you warm during those cold, cold nights? Yes, growing a beard is a rite of passage for every man. Wait… what did you think I was talking about? But you should all know that whenever you decide to experiment with facial hair you are making a statement to the world, whether you realize it or not. And because we care about you and what you choose to spread all over your face, we here at Guyism have decided to give you all a helping hand on your road to manhood (Not that kind of hand. Not this time, anyway…) with this helpful guide, which explains what these 16 different types of facial hair say about you. 15 more after the break...

15 Five O’Clock Shadow

What This Says About You: That you think you look rugged, but you think you’re too good looking to grow a full beard. You want people to think you’re a man without thinking that you’re Hillbilly Jim. Either that or you’re just really lazy.

Typical Quote: “I’m thinking about waxing my chest but I want to keep a little strip. You know, just something for the ladies to admire.”

14 Horseshoe Mustache

 What This Says About You: That you really, really want people to think you’re a badass. You probably own a motorcycle (only a Harley, none of those commie rice rockets) and you met your wife during a bar brawl when she hit you with a bar stool.

Typical Quote: (Sneers, stares silently, trying to intimidate you.)

13 Chinstrap

What This Says About You: That you want people to think that you’re sweet, sensitive, but still tough, a wounded bad boy with soul. Also, you really, really want early-90’s R&B to come back in a big way. Oh, and that you are hilariously cheesy.

Typical Quote: “Come on, girl, you know I do it all for love. I just wanna $ex you up, baby. I adore mi amor.”

12 Pencil Mustache

What This Says About You: That you are kitschy as hell and you probably own a complete set of retro Buck Rogers collector cups. Oh, and that you’re still a “bachelor” even though you’re 58 years old and you live in Key West with your “roommate,” Ramon.

Typical Quote: “I prefer A Star is Born era Judy Garland to Wizard era Judy, but that’s just me. I can just feel her pain.”

11 Van Dyke

What This Says About You: That you consider yourself an artist even though the only thing artistic about you is that beret you bought from the thrift store and your heroin addict girlfriend.

Typical Quote: “Ugh, I find politics to be so… suburban. Let’s talk about something more important, like did you hear that they’re not going to run midnight showings of The House of Wax on Halloween this year? Fascists.”

10 Mutton Chops

What This Says About You: That you want a beard without actually having to have one. Either that or you can’t grow the rest. Of course, there is also the possibility that you are an Elvis impersonator or that you are in training to join the X-Men.

Typical Quote: “They wanted me to shave my sideburns before they’d hire me at McDonald’s, but I told them no way, man. This is, like, my identity and shit. I’ll just apply at Arby’s. I hear they let you smoke weed out by the dumpsters when you take out the trash. That’s just what I heard, man.”

09 The Magnum P.I.

What This Says About You: That you drive around in your Corvette just so you get the chance to make eye contact with ladies -– it doesn’t matter who, as long they have a vagina and are ages 18-80 -– and that you probably own at least one gold medallion, which is good because you need something to cover your chest since you refuse to button your shirt past your sternum. Oh, and you desperately wish that it was still 1981. Either that or you’re a cop.

Typical Quote: “Why don’t we go back to your place? Mine is still being fumigated for crabs. Wait… where are you going? Wait!” Or: “License and registration.”

08 Soul Patch

What This Says About You: That you think that you’re sensitive and a bit mysterious, but really you just look like the sort of dude who snaps at bad poetry and then breaks out his one anecdote about Gloria Steinem that he uses every time he meets a vulnerable looking woman at the bookstore. You want people to think that you’re cooler than cool, more progressive than progress itself and that you really, really care, man.

Typical Quote: “I don’t have a condom, but it’s alright, we can just cuddle. Unless… you trust me, don’t you?”

07 Goatee

What This Says About You: That you’re comfortable going through life looking like a billy-goat. Also, that you can’t grow in the rest, but you think that this manages to hide your weak chin/six chins.

Typical Quote: “I prefer regular Mountain Dew to Code Red Mountain Dew even though the guys I play Call of Warfare with make fun of me for being boring. But I’m an individual, man.”

06 Ordinary Mustache

What This Says About You: That you’ve basically given up on life and/or you own a white van and are not allowed within 100 yards of a public school.

Typical Quote: “Get in the van.”

05 Hitler Stache

What This Says About You: That you really, really don’t like the films of Steven Spielberg or Woody Allen. Either that or you’re Michael Jordan. Also, you accept the fact that everyone you meet will instinctively hate you on site. Oh, and it’s possible that you own a weiss van and are not allowed within 100 yards of a schule.

Typical Quote: “Get in ze van!”

04 Hobo Beard

 What This Says About You: That you just don’t give a  F.

Typical Quote: “I just don’t give a F”

03 The Amish

 What This Says About You: That you have at least two friends named Jedediah and that you are unable to read this because reading this is a sin. Also, you get your kicks drag racing your horse and buggy through a cornfield but if Pa ever finds out, he’ll take away your other pair of pants and your good work shirt.

Typical Quote: “Thou can’t catcheth my whip in the quarter mile, English. I hath two horsepower.”

02 Fu Manchu

What This Says About You: That you are either the villain in a 70’s Kung-Fu flick or you are an outrageous hipster. Either way, everyone you meet secretly wants to karate kick you in the chest through an open window.

Typical Quote: “douchebag”

01 The Stonewall Jackson

What This Says About You: That you really, really love having a beard, so much that you are willing to have it be your defining characteristic. Also, you may or may not live in a shack in the woods and make a living selling moonshine and spend your days hollering at people because you think that the flu shot they got last winter really contained tiny neurotransmitters so that the government can read their thoughts.

Typical Quote: “If you don’t get off my property, I’m gonna introduce you to my good friend Winchester J. Rifle. Oh shit, get inside before the satellite from The Googles gets you and sells you to the Chinese! Hurry!”

Congratulations to all the successful completion of the work week, and wishing to different outputs, to share with you another set of facts. At this time – on Friday …10 facts after the break...

01. In the U.S. they say about Friday «TGIF» – of «Thank God It’s Friday» («Thank you, Lord, today is Friday!”) Or another version of «Take Good In Fridays» («Happy holidays”)

02. On ancient legends Wednesday and Friday – two angels, who will make a person into heaven.

03. 20 years ago, the collective unconscious fear of Friday the precipitated on 13th number, the American psychologist Donald Dossey coined a special term, “Paraskavedekatriafobiya.” According to the results of his research, in this day America loses $ 900 million due to decline of productivity.

04. ”Friday” – the proper name of the character of the novel by Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”, the native and the novel’s heroine, “Friday, which kills” the science fiction of Heinlein – spy and trained killer.

05. In Islam, Friday – a day off. It is believed that this day would come to an end. In Christianity, Friday – the day that was executed by Jesus Christ.

06. In most places, where the adopted five-day week, Friday – the last working day before the weekend and is therefore seen as an occasion for celebration and relaxation – “Friday’s syndrome.”

07. The legendary band «The Cure» Friday devoted one of his most famous songs – «Friday I’m In love».

08. In Catholic countries Friday – the sixth, not fifth day of the week.

09. In old Germanic tribes, the day of the week was dedicated to the goddess Freya, which is why in English Friday called Friday.

10. In 1826, Vyazemsky wrote the poem “Seven Fridays in the week,” on which Pushkin wrote to the author, wrote: “Seven Fridays” – the best your vaudeville. “