Jugami Space · The Moon

The Moon

Earth's closest neighbor in space!

The Moon, a round gray ball covered in craters, with a friendly smile

Hello, Moon watcher! Look up at night. You may see the Moon!

The Moon is a big ball of rock. It goes around and around Earth.

The Moon is smaller than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, the Moon would be about as big as a small green pea.

The Moon is about 238,900 miles away. That is a long trip!

The same side of the Moon always faces us. We never see its back side from Earth.

The Moon has no air. So there is no wind and no rain there.

Space rocks crashed into the Moon long ago. They made round holes called craters.

The dark patches are called seas, but they have no water. They are old lava that cooled into rock.

Why Does the Moon Glow?

The Moon looks bright, but it does not make its own light.

The Sun shines on the Moon. The sunlight bounces off the Moon and comes to Earth.

So moonlight is really sunlight! It is like a mirror bouncing light into a dark room.

How moonlight worksSunMoonEarth

The Moon's Changing Shapes

The Sun always lights up half of the Moon.

As the Moon goes around Earth, we see different amounts of that lit half. So the Moon seems to change shape!

These shapes are called phases. One full set takes about a month. Then it starts again.

Shapes as seen from the northern half of Earth. South of the equator, they look flipped.

Apollo 11: People Walk on the Moon

An astronaut on the Moon

Long ago, in 1969, three astronauts flew to the Moon. Their trip was called Apollo 11.

  • July 16, 1969: A giant rocket blasted off with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins.
  • July 20, 1969: Neil and Buzz landed on the Moon in a small spaceship called the Eagle. Michael flew around the Moon in the ship called Columbia.
  • Neil Armstrong was the first person to step on the Moon. Then Buzz Aldrin climbed down too.
  • July 24, 1969: All three astronauts came home safe. They splashed down in the ocean.

When Neil stepped down, he said:

“That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The Moon pulls on things much less than Earth does. Astronauts could bounce and hop!

Their footprints are still up there. With no wind or rain, nothing wipes them away.

In all, 12 astronauts have walked on the Moon.

Moon Quiz

Tap the answer you think is right.

Score: 0 of 6

  1. 1. What lights up the Moon?

  2. 2. What do we call it when the whole round Moon is lit up?

  3. 3. Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?

  4. 4. Why do footprints stay on the Moon for a long time?

  5. 5. What made the round holes called craters?

  6. 6. How long does the Moon take to go through all its shapes?

For Grown-ups

This page introduces the Moon for grades 1 to 3: moonlight is reflected sunlight, the eight phases and why they happen, and the Apollo 11 landing.

Try it: look at the Moon with your child a few nights in a row and match its shape to the phase chart. NASA's Daily Moon Guide shows tonight's phase.

The Moon's gravity is about one-sixth of Earth's, which is why the astronauts could bounce. A full cycle of phases takes about 29.5 days. The page keeps numbers simple, so it says “about a month.” The Armstrong quote is given as NASA prints it, with “[a]” in brackets.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against NASA:

Credits: All pictures on this page are original SVG drawings made for Jugami. They are simplified for young readers and not to scale. No tracking. Nothing is saved.