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The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth.
As the Moon waxes (the amount of illuminated surface as seen from Earth increases), the lunar phases progress through the new moon, crescent moon, first-quarter moon, gibbous moon, and full moon phases. The Moon then wanes as it passes through the gibbous moon, third-quarter moon, and crescent moon phases, before returning back to new moon.
The supermoon of 14 November 2016 was 356,511 km (221,526 mi) away [1] from the center of Earth. Supermoons occur 3–4 times per year. [2] As the Earth revolves around the Sun, approximate axial parallelism of the Moon's orbital plane (tilted five degrees to the Earth's orbital plane) results in the revolution of the lunar nodes relative to the Earth.
The Luna programme was the first successful lunar programme, its Luna 1 (1959) being the first partially successful lunar mission The first image taken of the far side of the Moon, returned by Luna 3 (1959) Missions to the Moon have been numerous and include some of the earliest space missions, conducting exploration of the Moon since 1959.
Timekeeping on the Moon is an issue of synchronized human activity on the Moon and contact with such. The two main differences to timekeeping on Earth are the length of a day on the Moon, being the lunar day or lunar month, observable from Earth as the lunar phases, and the rate at which time progresses, with 24 hours on the Moon being 58.7 microseconds (0.0000587 seconds) faster, [1 ...
Lunar nearside with major maria and craters labeled Lunar maria (singular mare ) are large, dark, regions of the Moon. They do not contain any water, but are believed to have been formed from molten rock from the Moon's mantle coming out onto the surface of the Moon.
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies of the same type: new moons or full moons. The precise definition varies, especially for the beginning of the month. Animation of the Moon as it cycles through its phases, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere
This is called major lunar standstill. Around this time, the Moon's declination will vary from −28°36′ to +28°36′. Conversely, 9.3 years later, the angle between the Moon's orbit and Earth's equator reaches its minimum of 18°20′. This is called a minor lunar standstill. The last lunar standstill was a minor standstill in October 2015.