Mauritius photo of Moon close-up with its craters in Mauritius

Moon close-up with its craters in Mauritius

Photography by Photographer Nav Dreepaul
669 views  /  Date taken : Wed, Jan 26 2022
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The Moon is the only natural satellite of the Earth; it is probably the result of a collision 4.4 billion years ago between our infant planet and a small celestial body called Theia. Humans, who have been observing it for a long time, have noticed that it has successive phases that occur every 29.53 days, a cycle called lunation. By studying its surface with the naked eye and then with instruments they discovered that it had dark areas, the seas, and light areas. The seas are large plains of solidified lava. This very fluid magma came up from the depths after an intense bombardment of the Moon by asteroids just under 4 billion years ago. The successive outpourings of lava stopped about 1 billion years ago. Only the highest regions have escaped this filling. These are the clear areas where we discover with the telescope many impact craters and some mountain ranges. This scenario has been corroborated by the analysis of lunar rock samples brought back by the different Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972. The Moon was thought to be geologically dead and devoid of interest, but different orbiters have detected in recent years water reserves at the lunar poles. This water was certainly brought by comets and could be preserved in the dark and icy bottom of the craters. Mauritius is a splendid place to watch the night sky because of low light pollution in many areas such as the south.

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