Moon Facts

There are two golf balls sitting on the moon.

The technology of a single Game Boy exceeds all the computing power that was used to put the first man on moon in 1969.

If your DNA was stretched out it would reach to the moon 6,000 times.

The moon is actually moving away from Earth at a rate of 1.5 inches per year.

Jupiter's moon Ganymede, is larger than the planet Mercury!

Some asteroids have other asteroids orbiting them.

41% of the moon is not visible from earth at any time.

Each day is getting slightly longer due to the Moon's gravitational pull on Earth's oceans. Tidal friction slows Earth's rotation by about 2.3 milliseconds per century - meaning days are lengthening by roughly one second every 50,000 years.

Tidal forces between the Earth and Moon are slowing the Earth down and pushing the Moon further away.

Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.

During the Cold War, the US had planned to detonate a nuclear weapon on the moon.

Saturn's moon, Mimas, not only looks like the Death Star, it also has a Pac Man heat signature.

Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, wrote his daughter's initials there. They’ll last at least 50,000 years.

The Sun and Moon appear to be the same size because the moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, but 400 times closer to Earth.

Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon.

Neil Armstrong, the first man to step foot on the moon, carried with him a piece of cloth and wood from the original 1903 Wright Flyer.

On Titan, Saturn's largest moon, the atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that humans could fly through it by flapping "wings" attached to their arms.

Scientists have confirmed that Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, has a watery ocean.

Nancy Carlson bought a plain bag at a government surplus auction for $995. It turned out to be Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 lunar sample bag - still containing actual moon dust from the first landing. NASA demanded it back. A federal judge ruled Carlson was the legal owner. She sold it at Sotheby's for $1.8 million. The moon was in the clearance bin.

Every other planet in the solar system can fit between Earth and the Moon — with roughly 4,400 km to spare.

Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan was driving the Moon rover in December 1972. The nearest repair shop was 238,000 miles away. A hammer in his pocket snapped off the rear fender. Moon dust began coating the crew and the rover's controls. Mission Control spent the night designing a fix. Cernan and Schmitt taped four lunar maps together and clamped on the homemade fender. It held for the rest of the mission. The fender is still on display today.