Table of Contents
- 1 What causes dark spots on Moon?
- 2 How did the moon get so many scars on it?
- 3 What are the blotches on the Moon?
- 4 Why is moon’s crust thicker on far side?
- 5 What are the dark spots and light areas on the moon called?
- 6 What are dark places on the moon called?
- 7 Why are there dark spots on the Moon’s surface?
What causes dark spots on Moon?
The dark areas are young plains called maria and are composed of basalt. The basalt flowed in and flooded the area created by a huge impact with an asteroid or comet. The light areas are the highlands, which are mountains that were uplifted as a result of impacts.
How did the moon get so many scars on it?
The craters on moon are a testimony to the violence that the solar system had to face during its infancy. Several hundred asteroids collided with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth and our moon. But this event- also called the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) occurred about 4 billion years ago.
How did the dark areas maria on the moon form?
Samples of lunar rock and soil brought back by Apollo astronauts proved that the maria are composed of basalt formed from surface lava flows that later congealed. The maria basins were formed beginning about 3.9 billion years ago during a period of intense bombardment by asteroid-sized bodies.
What are the blotches on the Moon?
Those spots are called maria, from the Latin word for sea, because early astronomers mistakenly thought they were lunar seas (they’re actually volcanic plains). The smooth and dark maria cover 17 percent of the surface of the moon.
Why is moon’s crust thicker on far side?
The difference in temperature between the moon’s halves influenced the formation of its crust. Eventually, these elements combined with silicates in the mantle of the moon to form minerals known as plagioclase feldspars, making the crust of the far side about twice as thick as that of the near side.
What are the dark spots on the Moon called?
The surface of the Moon is covered in huge dark spots, visible from Earth even with the naked eye. These patches are known as maria – a Latin word meaning ‘seas’.
What are the dark spots and light areas on the moon called?
As we mentioned, the first thing that you’ll notice when you look at the moon’s surface are the dark and light areas. The dark areas are called maria. There are several prominent maria. The maria cover only 15 percent of the lunar surface. The remainder of the lunar surface consists of the bright highlands, or terrae.
What are dark places on the moon called?
It has one of the largest craters in the Solar System, the South Pole-Aitken basin. The hemisphere is sometimes called the ” dark side of the Moon “, where “dark” means “unknown” instead of “lacking sunlight” – both sides of the Moon experience two weeks of sunlight while the opposite side experiences two weeks of night.
Why there is black spots on Moon?
The dark spots on the lunar surface are actually craters of varying sizes that formed due to collisions from celestial bodies , such as comets, meteorites and asteroids in the past, which left large, excavated holes after the impact.
Why are there dark spots on the Moon’s surface?
The dark spots on the lunar surface are actually craters of varying sizes that formed due to collisions from celestial bodies, such as comets, meteorites and asteroids in the past, which left large, excavated holes after the impact. At some point in your life, you’ve observed that our old, reliable moon is packed with a number of dark spots on its surface.