10 Unsolved Mysteries Of The Moon

ten unsolved mysteries of the moon number 10 how did it get there mankind is able to observe galaxies up to thirteen point three billion light-years away and has launched over eight thousand objects into space it therefore seems a bit ridiculous that we don't know such a basic fact about a celestial body that we've walked all over but yeah it's a total mystery as to how the hell the moon began there are loads of different theories the capture theory argues that the moon was just casually wandering about the universe until it got caught in our gravitational field the fission theory puts forward the idea that it used to be part of our planet that somehow drifted away but the most popular theory is that about 4.5 billion years ago a mars-sized body known as Thea smashed into a young molten earth and the moon formed from the wreckage but even this hypothesis creatively known as the giant impact Theory has its flaws one of the major problems with it is the presence of water on the moon a mystery which will go into more detail about later if the moon was created in a cataclysmic crash surely it would be far too hot for there to have ever been water there number 9 the dark side of the Moon the so called Dark Side of the Moon is not just the inspiration for one of the most iconic albums in rock history it is also a curiously uncharted enigma the earth and the moon are tidally locked meaning that the same hemisphere always faces us we know surprisingly little about the far side of the Moon it was only observed for the first time in 1959 when the Soviet Union's Luna 3 space probe photographed it and to date no human has ever set foot there the main thing we do know however is that the two hemispheres are remarkably different the nearer side is home to loads of dark regions known as Maria which are seas of called magma they make up 31.2% of the near hemisphere but on the other side these Maria are inexplicably rare less than 1% the crust on the far side is also at least 15 kilometers thicker and again no one can explain why investigation of the far side of the Moon is severely hampered by how the near side blocks communications between the Earth and any space missions that reach there number eight the key to life on Earth the Earth has a moon the earth has life but other two things connected for a long while now NASA has been searching the skies for earth-like planets that are either home to existing life or would be able to support it if colonized one key line of investigation is the question of whether moons and the tidal forces they exert are necessary for planets to support life the answer to this could actually like closer than you might think on Mars while the red planet does have moons Phobos and demios I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they don't really count as they're more like small captured asteroids Phobos is only 22 kilometers across and demios is even smaller 13 kilometers by contrast our moon is three thousand four hundred and seventy four kilometers across Mars has been and continues to be the focus of the most thorough search for extraterrestrial life thanks to its handily closed location according to physics professor Neil Commons if we were to find evidence that life has ever existed on the planet it would suggest that moons like ours are not an essential ingredient for life such a discovery is unlikely but not impossible number seven lunar swirls first discovered in the 1970s lunar swirls are a bizarre phenomenon that seems to be unique to our Moon they're basically these odd markings on the surface of the Moon that look like when you stir cream into your coffee and they tend to be about ten kilometres across but what are they and where did they come from well according to Bob Lynn a physicist who's been studying them for almost forty years we don't know one potential explanation is that they were formed from plumes of material ejected when comets impacted the moon but then they're not always found near comet craters so that theory is a bit flawed then there's the idea that they were produced by solar winds which contain electrically charged particles that could have reacted with particles on the surface of the Moon but these would be more likely to create a sandblast effect rather than the swirls that we see finally some speculate that lunar swells were caused by charged particles in the lunar crust responding to shifts in the moon's magnetic field but then the whole motion of that magnetic field is a bit debatable talking of which number six the moon's magnetic field during the 1960s and 1970s when admissions to the moon were at their most frequent astronauts brought home some perplexing items magnetic rocks now magnetic rocks themselves are nothing special they are created over hundreds of thousands of years as molten rocks with certain mineral compositions pool in the presence of a magnetic field they're all over the place on earth but their discovery on the moon really confused scientists because as far as all their investigations had concluded the moon doesn't have a magnetic field so how could it have magnetic rocks could they possibly be alien well probably not the more plausible explanation for this conundrum is that the moon used to be magnetic but that field disappeared millions of years ago but that theory still raises the question of why the magnetic field disappeared and well scientists are kind of stumped some think it vanished because of the natural stirring movements of the moon's core whilst others argue it's the result of a series of impacts with large space rocks number 5 moon quakes any 13 year old geography student can tell you that earthquakes are the result of our planets tectonic plates rubbing up against each other but the moon isn't made of plates like these so how come it still gets quakes some moon tremors are fairly easy to trace there are the vibrations you get from meteorite impacts which are fairly self-explanatory and thermal quakes caused by sudden changes in temperature both of these types tend to be fairly minor barely enough to shatter a window but then there are some that we just can't explain and they are often a lot more powerful and localized moon quakes have been registered up to 5.5 on the Richter scale as in furniture moving wall crumbling tremors and we have no idea what causes these tremors some think it could be linked to the tidal effects that the earth has on the moon just as the moon's gravitational pull affects tides on the earth so too does the earth affect the moon but seeing as there aren't vast oceans on the moon it has dry rocky tides instead there is a possibility these tides could cause moon quakes but that still doesn't explain why they'd be so localized number four water on the moon the idea that there could be water on the moon is one that has both excited and perplexed scientists for decades in 1996 NASA's Clementine spacecraft indicated that there could be frozen water on the moon a surprising claim that was later backed up by the lunar prospector spacecraft two years later this is exciting because a it could save us the efforts of hauling bucket loads of water on manned missions from Earth and B it could imply a greater abundance of h2o in the universe than we thought before seeing as ice can possibly have formed naturally on the moon it had to have traveled there aboard an asteroid the confirmation that water can be spread in this way suggests that it could theoretically reach any corner of the universe the mystery here is if water did make its way to the moon thousands of years ago how come it was still frozen in the 1990s the moon has virtually no atmosphere and temperatures can reach up to 123 degrees centigrade you'd think water would quickly evaporate in these conditions number three how does it affect our sleep it's well known that the moon affects a lot here on earth I mean the tides go in the tides go out you can't explain that but how does it affect us humans well it turns out full moons do have an impact on us but thankfully not in their turning people into werewolves kind of way a study published in the journal Current Biology examined how the sleep patterns of 33 volunteers varied over a number of months scans taken during a full moon showed that participants generally took five minutes longer than normal to fall asleep they also slept for an average of 20 minutes less and the quality of their sleep was poorer blood tests also show that people's melatonin levels fluctuate and correspondence to the cycle of the moon when the moon is full er their levels of the sleep regulating hormone are lower scientists are baffled by how the moon an object of three day rocket ride away could possibly affect how people drift off one as yet unproven theory is that these fluctuating sleep patterns are an evolutionary hangover from when our ancestors used to use the light of the full moon to hunt for longer into the night number two what's at the core we know a lot about the Earth's core through drilling operations and research into seismic waves we know it's made up of iron and its outermost part is approximately 3,000 kilometers below our feet however in a very literal sense scientists have barely scratched the surface of the Moon while the moon is fairly close in the grand scheme of things it's not quite close enough to conduct very intense studies into it's calm humans haven't walked on the moon since Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in December 1972 let alone drilled into it as a result no one knows for certain what the moon's core is made of many speculate that like with earth an iron core is most probable but there is very little evidence proving that one intriguing hypothesis is that the moon's core is home to a wealth of precious metals such as gold or platinum this idea comes from investigations of lunar rocks gathered during the Apollo missions which contains surprisingly little precious metals as these metals easily mix with iron it's plausible that when the moon's core formed it sucked all the gold and platinum down into it mining trip to the moon anyone number one will people ever live on the moon so it's home to inexplicable moon quakes has a turbulent atmosphere and is scorching hot but could the moon actually be a fairly good possibility for human colonization well surprisingly NASA is currently looking for an answer to that exact question the space agency is looking at a small area of land near the lunar South Pole as the potential base for a moon camp there's constant daylight at this point which could be useful for the growth of crops and food but then like I said a lunar base would have to overcome a lot of environmental complications and NASA currently have no solutions for how to make the moon habitable another really intriguing side of this mystery is whether the moon could offer a possible solution to Earth's energy woes scientists estimate that there could be over 900 million kilograms of helium-3 on the moon which gram for gram might just be the most powerful fuel in existence that doesn't produce radiation or waste the amounts on the moon could provide over 1,000 years worth of fusion power the question now is whether there would be any way of mining this helium-3 and right now we just don't have a clue how to do that so that was 10 unsolved mysteries of the Moon if you found this video interesting make sure you head over to 10 most terrifying places in the universe and as always give us a like and subscribe thanks for watching you

Channel: Alltime10s

Views: 402,172

Rating: 4.7593374 out of 5

Keywords: Alltime10s, 10s, facts, video, list, top 10, unsolved, mysteries, the moon, lunar, space, science, astronomy, mysterious, unanswered, theory, Theia, Giant Impact, tides, man on the moon, hoax, apollo, NASA, astronaut, telescope, life on earth, alien, extraterrestrial, Mars, Phobos, Deimos, lunar swirls, magnetic field, water on the moon, magnetic, moon rock, ocean, cycle, core, iron, gold, diamond, colony, moon colony, humans, food, moon mysteries, moon mystery, mysteries of the moon, unsolved mysteries of the moon

Id: tSJzq41UuAI

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2017