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Mexico.- The arrival of man on the moon, 49 years ago, was a small step for man, but a big step for humanity, as pointed out the American astronaut Neil Armstrong when he became the first human to walk on the lunar surface, 360 years after the English astronomer, Thomas Harriot, made the first drawings and maps of the Earth's natural satellite.
The Moon – the only place outside the Earth where humans put a foot – can be seen with the naked eye simply by looking up at the sky during the night or early morning, but the distance between them is close to 384,400 kilometers.
The list of benefits of this event for humanity, said in an interview with Notimex Rodolfo Neri Vela, the first Mexican in space, is endless and was a scientific and technological revolution.
In his opinion, the arrival of humans on the Moon On July 20, 1969, provided endless knowledge, and the most important was to know the composition and characteristics of the lunar soil.
The Moon, as an object of scientific study, remains a subject of debate despite the fact that since 1969 and 1972, the Apollo program of the National Aeronautics Administration and space (NASA) performs six successful lunar landings, in addition to recent robotic explorations.
One of the most accepted theories within NASA. the scientific community, is that this satellite that shines because its surface reflects sunlight, is formed after the collision of a body the size of Mars with the Earth.
"In this collision, part of the Earth's mass and this material formed the Moon in a relatively short time, so that the two are closely related," said astrophysicist Dr. José Franco, who also evoked this event and its transcendence
With the formation of the Sun, the planets did the same, so that the Moon is made of a material similar to all the objects of the Solar System.
"The planet with which it is supposed to collide the Earth was made of the same material as that of the Sun," commented the general coordinator of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Forum (FCCyT).
With a radius of 1,737 kilometers, less than one-third the width of the Earth, the Moon has a strong inner core and iron-rich 240 kilometers radius. A mantle that extends from the top of the partially melted layer to the bottom of the lunar crust
The crust, made of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium and d & # 39; aluminum, with small amounts of titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium and hydrogen, has a thickness of nearly 70 kilometers in the hemisphere near the side of the moon and 241 kilometers to its opposite end.
The reason that the moon always gives the same face to the "blue planet" is the attraction of the Earth to its satellite, which causes its orbit and rotation related to its host, such as the moon. explains José Franco.
The lunar planet forms a complete orbit around the Earth 27 days of the earth. However, because the "blue planet" also moves and turns on its axis while the Sun is spinning, the Moon seems to be spinning around us every 29 days, says NASA
"The Moon was very important in the definition of our life, so much so that the characterization of the months is dominated by the time it takes for the moon to repeat the periods, "said the first Mexican doctor in astronomy and president of the International Astronomical Union ( AIU, for its acronym in English), Silvia Torres Castilleja
The Moon is this "beautiful body" that we see in the sky, which changes characteristics over the days and has four phases that have helped humanity to define the weeks, pointed out the researcher. National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The first is the "New Moon", it occurs when the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth; the illuminated part is in its rear part and, therefore, it is not visible to the naked eye and lasts one day each month.
"Fourth Crescent" occurs when it is observed that the Moon is at a 90-degree angle to the Sun and Earth, so that a dark half and an illuminated half is seen, it stays 13 days.
A third phase is the "Full Moon", which is when the moon's hemisphere we can see from the Earth is completely illuminated by the Sun, which lasts 3 to 4 days.
The "descending quarter" occurs when the star is, again, at an angle of 90 degrees to the Sun. and the Earth, however, on this occasion its illuminated face is the one that remained dark during the "crescent" with a duration of 13 days.
"The presence of the moon determines the tides at sea and at low tide, and they also know some crustaceans because their life is governed by the tides," he said.
"I do not know not what would be the effects of not having Luna.Maybe there was not too much, but it was a sudden absence, of course, l & # 39; 39, astronomer said.
Rodolfo Neri Vela emphasized the importance of scientific studies that were conducted on lunar rocks belonging to various regions that were brought to Earth, since each mission descended in a different area
He said that the first photographs of the Earth taken from the Moon, showed our planet as a blue jewel suspended in the dark space. "Beautiful and fragile at once", full of life but exposed to all kinds of dangers.
In this way, he commented, the environmental movement emerged and took onscience of the importance of taking care of the only place where, up to now, we can live.
Thus, since the pre-Hispanic times, the Moon has been the object of worship, inspiration to compose songs, poems, books, movies and movies. photographs, where the authors modify even more their beauty. And it is that, for example, the Moon lives an eternal romance with the Sun, and from this, each "eclipse of love" accounts for it.
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