Reading the Moon's Secrets

[Music] oh man first landed on the moon July 20th 1969 five more trips were made to the Moon each to a different location from these six journeys of exploration astronauts brought over 800 lb of rocks and soil samples to Earth and left five scientific stations on the moon that continue to radio scientific information to us scientists all over the world have been studying these moon rocks and soil and information from the automatic scientific stations and are reading the moon's [Music] [Applause] [Music] secrets during this film you will be asked to answer 10 questions about the moon before each question you will see a series of scenes that will help you select the best answer to the question however you may find some questions are still difficult to answer do not be surprised if this happens because the questions are purposely designed to provoke thought and discussion following the film your teacher will explain the best answers to all of the questions in a discussion session record your answers to the questions when they are asked so that when the film is over you can find out how well you can read the secrets of the Moon do you remember what the Moon looked like the last time you saw it it must have looked like this now for a moment imagine that you are going to the Moon you have special powers and as we land on the moon's surface we don't have to stop imagine that we can shrink to a very small size and enter into the rocks and explore first we see the individual minerals of which The Rock consists as we become still smaller we encounter the building materials of all matter atoms think about this for a moment are the atoms making up the moon the same kind of atoms we find on Earth record your answer instead of our imaginary Journey let's follow a real trip to the moon the astronauts are leaving Earth and in a few days they will be landing on the moon go they just been uh looking at your your marks with as you follow them on this space FL and watch what they are doing on the moon's surface consider the question of why man would want to explore the mo okay 51 5 1 0 enter okay check little forward velocity getting a little dust stand by for Touchdown stand by that contact and stop okay Houston the Challenger has landed I'm uh at the foot of the ladder and step off the L now yeah this is Houston we're copying men were sent to the Moon a because of man's curiosity to explore the moon when he had the opportunity B in order to learn the answers to fundamental scientific questions about the moon C in order to demonstrate American technological ability record your answer [Applause] down at this time the areed in the water after the astronauts returned to Earth you may recall that the scientists made intensive searches for living organisms following the early lunar missions the astronauts were quarantined to prot protect us against the transfer of possible harmful living organisms to Earth life forms the lunar rocks were also quarantined during their initial Examination for the same reason no living organisms were found in any lunar material this result no life was anticipated by most scientists the next question concerns the search for evidence of life that might be found in lunar rocks scientists were hoping to find evidence of life in lunar rocks because such evidence might a provide clues to the early development of life forms B Supply us with new kinds of plants C provide clues to new forms of life that might be found on Earth record your answer as some scientists looked for evidence of life in the lunar rocks and soils others were measuring the ages of these same rocks they discovered that the lunar Ignus rocks range in age from nearly 4.6 billion years to 3.2 billion years the oldest known Earth rocks are about 3.9 billion years old does this mean that the Moon is older than the earth record your answer the Moon is not a smooth Globe but has a roughly textured surface here you can easily see the lunar maria the dark areas called Seas by early astronomers and the lunar Highlands surrounding the Maria the most obvious features on the lunar surface are craters of many different sizes notice the variety of surface features craters mountains peaks in the centers of craters and reals your next question is related to how these surface features were formed do you think that most lunar surface features were formed in the same way as Earth surface surface features record your answer direct observation of the Moon by the astronauts revealed that the surface lunar materials have many physical characteristics of Earth rocks for example on the moon the astronauts found ous rocks rocks that crystallized from a melt and metamorph rocks rocks that have been changed from their original form because they were subjected to heat and pressure did the astronauts find any materials that we can say are similar to sedimentary materials found on Earth record your answer now that we have visited the moon we have confirmed that it is composed of the same elements that we find on Earth we find that plants on Earth continue to grow well when in contact with lunar soil we also find that lunar rocks rust and weather when exposed to the Earth's atmosphere therefore they must be handled and stored in a pure nitrogen atmosphere we also find the amounts of the different elements are not the same for the moon as for the Earth for example the Moon is deficient in such elements as nitrogen neon argon sodium phosphorus Mercury lead and carbon and its compounds as well as free oxygen and hydrogen and therefore water your question about the composition of the moon is Rel related to why the moon's composition differs from that of Earth the moon's composition is different from that of the Earth because a all of the elements found on Earth were not present when the moon was formed B the moon was formed under different conditions than the earth C we haven't collected enough samples from the Moon to really know about its composition record your answer in this episode you will have to think about the interior of both the Earth and the moon on the earth we find evidence for huge crustal plates that move or drift relative to each other the movements of the plates result in earthquakes and when two plates collide or push against each other mountain ranges like the Himalayas can be formed in contrast the lunar mountains appear to be formed by meteoroid impact and nearly all lunar craters have retained their circular forms the craters have not been squeezed into ellipses or other shapes from the records of the seismographs placed on the lunar surface we deduce that the Moon is solid to a depth of 800 kilm on the earth we have evidence of continental drift on the moon no evidence of crustal drift how come a the moon does not have an inner metallic core B the moon's crust is so thick and solid it can't move C the moonquakes are too weak to fracture the moon's crust into plates record your answer on Earth the surface rocks weather and erode here you see the rock fragments that have broken away from the cliff and collected at its base think a moment about what happens to the Rocks Exposed on the lunar surface do you think that the lunar rocks weather and erode record your answer the astronauts on Apollo 17 collected samples from some large Boulders one Boulder sampled from a large Hill called North Massif lies at the end of a long trench in the lunar soil that extends up the hill to a rock formation from which the boulder apparently tumbled when the the boulder broke away it exposed a fresh rock surface from microscopic tracks left by cosmic rays in the fresh rock surface scientists have determined that the boulder tumbled down the hill about 20 million years ago your question is related to the fact that the boulder track has not been destroyed does this mean that the moon surface a will remain unchanged in the future B changes very slowly C in some places does not change at all record your answer we know many facts about the moon that we could not have learned without instruments on the moon and samples from the Moon we know that the Moon is a small individual planet with its very own composition internal structure and history we know that it was born in the solar system but we still don't know whether it was once a part of Earth or formed alongside Earth or formed far away and was later captured by Earth thus there are still many secrets to be learned about our sister Planet some secrets are still hidden in the lunar Rock samples and measurements from the surface experiments waiting to be found by future scientists with new ideas new questions new methods some Secrets may require further exploration of the moon for their Discovery some may be uncovered during studies of mercury or Venus or Mars or even Earth we may never know some of the secrets even some of the important ones but the more we learn about the moon and other planets the better we understand our destiny and the nature and and limits of our planetary home [Music] [Music] Earth [Music]