The Moon

There remains, despite all of the wonderful advances in technology and our understanding of our surroundings, no explanation of how the Moon came to be. It is has played a vital role in life on Earth for a number of reasons, protecting our planet from meteor showers, acting as a stabilising influence in maintaining the tilt of the Earth, creating tides of the oceans and ensuring an even spread of sunlight reaches the Earth's surface.

The Moon does possess some rather odd dimensions when compared to the Earth and Sun - maybe too odd to be coincidental.

The Moon is approximately 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun but by the same token is approximately 400 times closer. It is a sphere, like the Sun. This allows us to observe the phenomenon of total eclipses - something that does not occur anywhere else as we as we know. The Earth is 3.66 times bigger than the Moon (the Earth's year is 366 astronomical days). It takes the Moon 27.322 days to orbit the Earth which means that 366 lunar orbits takes 10,000 days. The circumference of thr Moon is 10,928.8 kilometres (400 x 27.322) and this circumference is 27.322% of the Earth's circumference. The Sun is 109.288 times bigger than the Earth.

Take into account the fact that according to NASA's seismic measurements, the Moon is probably not even a natural satellite of the Earth (being not dense enough at its core) then it is a very peculiar object indeed. How it got where it is or even more strangely who put it there is all subject to debate.

Nonetheless, a cracking read on this subject is 'Who Built The Moon?' by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler. These guys have plenty of other worthwhile reads, too.