• Question: what is the moon made of

    Asked by daisy to Pete, Jake, James, Senga, Simonne on 13 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by koo koo cat.
    • Photo: Pete Gwynne

      Pete Gwynne answered on 13 Nov 2017:

      like the earth, the moon has a core of super hot liquid iron with a crust that’s made of rock. the rock is pretty much the same as a lot of rocks on earth – they are mostly igneous rocks that come from when lava flows out of volcanoes. because the rocks are so similar, a lot of people think that the moon was formed when another planet (about the size of mars) crashed into the earth. the other planet squished into the earth, and the moon was knocked off.

    • Photo: Senga Robertson

      Senga Robertson answered on 14 Nov 2017:

      My mum used to tell me that the moon was made of cheese!

      The moon is actually made of rock, it’s covered in craters from asteroids and meteorites hitting its surface. The moons crust is made of regolith which is sort of like concrete. Random fact: during the time when the moon was hit a lot by meteorites etc (about 4 billion years ago), it was hit so hard and often that there is a layer about 3 meters deep of powder covering the crust of the moon which is why we can see such a cool photo of the astronauts boot taken during the moon landing.
      The moon also has volcanos, early in the moon’s history, the inside was molten enough to produce volcanoes (lava is molten rock), but it quickly cooled and hardened. Lava also burst from the crust when large enough asteroids broke through the surface, you can actually see what look like oceans on the moon that are actually cooled, set lava.

      Very cool!

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