WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE MOON? – By Bola Adewara

Since the late 1960s when man set foot on the moon, more men have visited it and left things there. About seventy things have been left there, raging from lunar vehicles, photographs and urine bags.

Others are golf (a man even played golf on the moon) and a letter signed by over 40 heads of countries on earth, the only African being Leopold Sedar Senghor, then of Senegal.

Shortly I will start telling you one by one the things left behind and how they got there.

But before that, let me tell you more about the moon. So many people have no idea what the moon is.

When I asked some artisans around me, one said the moon is a touch light. Another said it’s the wife of the sun. So many people have no idea, graduates or no graduates.

As I was about typing this, Mr Talo sauntered in to ask for a biscuit. I met him with the question: “What do you think the moon is?

“It’s a rock! He answered with confidence.

“A rock? I was shocked. “Who told you? You must have overheard me soliloquising.

“No, Daddy. I heard it in one cartoon.”

“Cartoon? I kept quiet. I never knew these cartoons amounted to anything. I’ve always wondered what do children enjoy in them. To me, cartoons na big waste of time. I have never watched one!

Back to focus. Not many people know that the moon is a rock that makes it to shine or reflect from the sun. The moon has no light of its own.

That man set foot on the moon is a great achievement. Clap for yourselves. How did this happen?

The first living thing in space was Laika, (1954 – November 3, 1957) a Soviet dog, who became the first animal to orbit the Earth.

Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957.

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The Soviet Union’s Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with uncrewed spacecraft in 1959; the United States NASA Apollo program achieved the only crewed missions to date, beginning with the first crewed lunar orbiting mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six crewed lunar landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11.

The primary moon missions were the Apollo Lunar Missions. Astronauts landed on the moon during Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17.

On Apollo 8 and Apollo 10, astronauts circled the moon and returned to Earth. On Apollo 13, which ran into trouble, the astronauts only flew by the moon.

During the mission, an oxygen tank leaked and exploded, causing major systems to fail all over the ship, including the electrical system and propulsion.

The crew also lost much of their oxygen. Nonetheless, the crew members of Apollo 13 managed to return to Earth safely.

These missions returned lunar rocks which have been used to develop a geological understanding of the Moon’s origin, internal structure, and later history.

Since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft.

This NASA moon rock was collected by astronauts on the Apollo 14 mission to the lunar surface in 1971. NASA has lost or misplaced more than 500 of them.

At different times, NASA secret agents have caught people trying to sell the moon rocks. One was caught around 2007 trying to sell a piece of it for $1.7million.

Below are pictures of rock samples imported to earth from the moon.

To be continued. Hope you gained something here.

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