PLANET OF THE WEEK: THE MOON

Yeah, yeah! I know, The Moon is not a planet, it's a natural satellite. I'll explain later why I chose a moon as the planet of the week:D

Earth has one moon. Its diameter is about one third and mass 1/85 of Earth's. Moon is relatively dense, second only to Io. It is the fifth largest moon in the solar system and relative to Earth, it is the biggest natural satellite. It has solid iron inner core and liquid outer core. Its crust is made primaly out of vulcanic minerals and has a great amounts of Helium-3 on the surface.

Moon's formation is not entirely clear, there are several theories. The prevaling theory, is that, an Mars sized protoplanet hit the young Earth, about 40 million years after the creation of the solar system. The cosmic collision melted the entire planet and the cores of the to planets, fused together to form the Earth we know today. Great deal of materials exploded to orbit around the Earth. Over time the materials accmulated to form the Moon.

Moon has no atmosphere and because of its size, has low gravity. The escape velocity is about 2,4 km/s(Earth's is 11,2 km/s). Moon shows always the same side to us, its because Earth's gravitational pull. It is called tidal lock.

Moon's distance to Earth, now we are getting to the juicy stuff, is on avarage 370 000 km. Apogee is over 400 000 km. Here is the interesting stuff, the point where the Moon is closest to Earth, the perigee, happens March 19th. Moon is then just little under 350 000 kilometers from Earth. Last time this happened, was 18 years ago. Now you might understand why I would choose Moon as the planet of the week.

This Perigee caught my interest, because Moon comes close to Earth during a full moon AND because there seems to be a slight elevation in Earthquakes, storms and other extreme events. By slight I mean very very small elevation. It is very obvious that Moon affects Earth's climate with tidal interaction. When Moon comes this close, it is bound to cause stronger tidal forces, no doubt about it. I would not go as far as some (I will post links as soon as I find the story I'm refering to) tabloids and scientists have, as to say that this "super perigee" will cause unseen disasters. Some pretty sensationalist claims and panic mongering.

There you go, this was my reason to select Moon as the planet of the week:D By the way, what is interesting is that, as I began to write this post, I heared that there has been a very strong earthquake in Japan. It was measured as 8,9 in the richter scale and caused 10 meters high tsunami. It was strongest quake in a long time... Wonder if it is just a coinsidence?

EDIT: Okay! I found nearly the same story, about the scientist who told that there will be "super moon" and it will cause disasters... altough it is not the same scoop I read... This is from NASA NASA's Space.com. Enjoy!