What is earth’s only natural satellite

Moon, the only natural satellite revolving around the Earth, primarily stabilizes the living planet’s axial wobble, thereby; helping maintain a constant climate and making Earth a habitable planet. Moon is the fifth largest among over 200 natural satellites that orbit planets in our solar system. Here is an in-depth look into the various facets of the moon: Structure The moon is primarily comprised of three layers – core, mantle and crust. Moon has a comparatively smaller core than other terrestrial bodies, with a solid inner core of a radius of 149 miles and a 56 miles shell of liquid iron surrounding it. The liquid iron core is surrounded by a partially molten layer with a radius of about 93 miles. The mantle of the moon is the surface from the tip of the partially molten layer to the base and comprises mostly minerals olivine and pyroxene which are most likely the composition of the elements of magnesium, iron, silicon and oxygen. The upper surface or the crust of the moon traces amounts of titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium, and hydrogen. Formation Most reliable studies suggest that the moon was formed about 4.5 billion years ago when a terrestrial body almost equivalent to the size of Mars collided with the Earth. Size and distance With a radius of 1,080 miles, the moon is about one-third of the width of the Earth and is around 238,855 miles away from the Earth. Rotation The moon has a synchronous rotation, which means that the time taken by the moon to orbit aroun...

Earth is the planet we live on, one of eight planets in our solar system and the only known place in the universe to support life. Earth is the third planet from the sun, after Mercury and Venus, and before Mars. It is about 150 million kilometers (about 93 million miles) from the sun. This distance, called an astronomical unit (AU), is a standard unit of measurement in astronomy. Earth is one AU from the sun. The planet Jupiter is about 5.2 AU from the sun—about 778 million kilometers (483.5 million miles). Earth is the largest and most massive of the rocky inner planets, although it is dwarfed by the gas giants beyond the Asteroid Belt. Its diameter is about 12,700 kilometers (7,900 miles), and its mass is about 5.97×1024 kilograms (6.58×1021 tons). In contrast, Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has a diameter of 143,000 kilometers (88,850 miles), and its mass is about 1,898×1024 kilograms (2093×1021 tons). Earth is an oblate spheroid. This means it is spherical in shape, but not perfectly round. It has a slightly greater radius at the Equator, the imaginary line running horizontally around the middle of the planet. In addition to bulging in the middle, Earth’s poles are slightly flattened. The geoid describes the model shape of Earth, and is used to calculate precise surface locations. Earth has one natural satellite, the moon. Earth is the only planet in the solar system to have one moon. Venus and Mercury do not have any moons, for example, while Jupite...

Natural Satellites are celestial bodies that orbit a Planet or any other Celestial body and which are not Man-Made. The most well known Natural Satellite is the Earth's Moon. The term Moon is often synonymous to Natural Satellites as they are generally orbiting a Planet. Generally speaking, all masses that are part of the Solar System, including the Earth, are Satellites either of the Sun, or Satellites of those objects, such as the Moon. For an object to be considered as a Satellite - the centre of mass of the two objects has to be inside the primary object. 6 Planets of the Solar System i.e. Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have Natural Satellites. The Earth has 1 Satellite, Mars has 2, Jupiter has 63, Saturn has 62, Uranus has 27 and Neptune has 13 Natural Satellites. Other bodies in the Solar System like Dwarf Planets and Asteroids, also have Natural Satellites. As of July 2009, 336 bodies have been formally classified as Moons. These include 168 orbiting the 6 Planets, 6 orbiting 3 Dwarf Planets, 104 Asteroid Moons, and 58 Satellites of Trans-Neptunian objects. Classification / Types of Natural Satellites Regular Moons or Regular Natural Satellites - Regular Natural Satellites have Prograde orbits i.e. they orbit in the direction of their Planets' rotation and lie close to the plane of their equators. They are considered to have formed in orbit about their primary Planet. There are at least 55 Regular Satellites of the 8 Planets : 1 at Earth, 8 at Jupi...

Understand the functioning of artificial satellites, the problem of overcrowding and how space junks are a threat to space travels Earth satellite, also called artificial satellite, artificial object launched into a temporary or permanent The idea of an artificial satellite in orbital flight was first suggested by Satellites can be placed in any number of different orbits. The particular path selected is largely determined by the function of the spacecraft. Most weather and reconnaissance satellites, for example, are fired into a polar orbit in which Earth’s polar axis is a line on the orbital plane. Because Earth rotates under polar-orbiting satellites, they pass over its entire surface within a given time period, providing full global coverage. Communications satellites, on the other hand, are generally placed into an equatorial orbit, which enables them to See also This article was most recently revised and updated by

A single orbit of our planet takes the Moon 27.3 Earth days - the same amount of time it takes for the satellite to also rotate once on its axis. As a result, half of the Moon's surface perpetually faces Earth. The other half (erroneously referred to as the dark side of the Moon, in spite of receiving the same amount of sunlight as the more familiar side) was finally seen for the This ' At the same time, the Moon is gradually inching away from our world, How was the Moon formed? It's widely accepted that the Moon was formed from the debris of a collision between an infant Earth and a planet roughly the size of Early in the Solar System's formation around 4.5 billion years ago, many emerging planets and protoplanets would have had overlapping and unstable orbits that brought them within range of colliding. An impact between two similarly-sized bodies could have vaporised both, leaving a mix of their molten minerals and heated gases swirling under the pull of gravity. Lighter elements and debris could have aggregated to form the Moon, with denser materials from Theia settling into a core for a 'rejuvenated' Earth to form around. Materials brought back by the Apollo missions largely support this hypothesis over other ideas, such as those that suggest the Moon was captured by Earth's gravity. This was easier to do in an era of tension between superpowers, which threatened a return to global conflict. Today, without this threat, similar programs would need good reasons to argue...