Gazing at the Moon

Earth's friend who floats in the night sky

The little pale orb that floats amongst the stars is something I think most people have taken some time to stop and appreciate every now and then. I started to think to myself this week, I wonder how many people actually know things about the Moon? We look up at night, and probably never go much deeper than, “The Moon looks beautiful tonight!” You may think there isn’t too much to know about a giant spherical rock, but there are actually some pretty interesting things to learn. Did you know the Moon has lights that randomly appear which nobody can explain? They are called transient lunar phenomena. People have theories about what they are, but no one is totally sure what causes them.

I made an animation that I wasn’t sure how cool it’d be, or if it’d be satisfying enough for me to even be happy about. I wanted to animate a moon rotating, would’ve been cool to do the full rotation, but that’s simply too many frames. I think what I ended up with is pretty nice though! I rarely like a ping-pong loop, but in this case I think it right technique to make this a good cycle.

Image of the moon, animated with Runway, printed, drawn, scanned.

There’s a chance seeing the texture online may be a little funky, I’ll attach some images of the scans below so you can see the details. I was pretty happy with this one.

I’m sure anyone can guess there’s a bunch of cool science facts about the moon. Like that the moon had an atmosphere 3 billion years ago. I mean that’s cool but it’s also 3 billion years ago, so what does it really matter? The ones that really caught my eye were the more obscure, extra-terrestrial feeling facts and theories.

One cool thing that stood out to me, is that astronauts’ footsteps or rover tracks will never go away because the moon has no wind, rain or other elements to change the landscape. The only things that can disrupt old tracks are new ones, or random space debris hitting the moon in those spots. With that knowledge though, one can then assume that the Moon basically keeps an infinite archive of all visitors.

Drew over the frames with compressed charcoal.

Speaking of past visitors, I guess we can’t really talk about the moon without diving into aliens at least a little bit… Right? Don’t worry, I don’t have any crazy theories for you today. I will say I do think aliens exist, in some form or another. Do I think they’re flying around in UFOs and abducting people? I’m not so sure about that. Who knows though, those alien documentaries can be damn convincing.

So far there’s no evidence of aliens on the moon, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Remember how I said the Moon will function as an infinite archive of all past visitors? Well the same reasoning why tracks will stay forever is the same reason the Moon is considered the most likely place to find evidence of aliens. There’s no atmosphere to destroy any evidence. Though there’s been nothing discovered on the surface, it doesn’t mean there aren’t things buried below it.

Events have happened to the Moon over the years that have change it. There’s a giant lump under the surface, and people theorize it was the core of an asteroid that crashed into it one day and just stayed stuck to the moon. People also believe there could have been two moons around Earth at one point, at that they crashed into one another to form the one we currently have. Although, that’s not proven, people consider that to be the strongest theory of how the Moon came to be.

I’m a bit sad this animation is breaking in the post (at least on my screen it is), I figured I’d pop it in here either way. I think if you expand it, it may display properly.

I wanted to use this as a representation of the Moon affecting the tides. So funny that the little sphere orbiting our planet has enough gravity to pull our ocean closer to it. It’s a crazy concept overall that everything about the moon is just right in relation to the Earth. The roundness, the strength of its gravity, the fact that it’s the perfect size for a solar eclipse. Our moon is truly the perfect partner to Earth.

I don’t want this to be a total ramble of fun Moon facts. My real goal here is to help myself, and others, gain a bit more of an appreciation and a love for the world that exists around us. It’s a special place, with so many interesting bits scattered everywhere. Maybe now when you look at the Moon, you may think a bit more deeply about it.

Thanks for reading, see you next week!