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Moon facts
Moon facts
America gets all the credit for lunar exploration, but it was actually Russia that got to the lunar surface first. The Soviet Luna 2 landed on the Moon in 1959 – a whole decade before Neil Armstrong did the same.
The only person to have been laid to rest on the Moon is Dr Eugene Shoemaker, a top scientist who had been prevented from becoming an astronaut due to a medical condition. But in death he achieved his dream – his ashes were carried to the Moon by a space probe in 1999.
The Moon isn't round, but egg-shaped. You can't tell from looking at it because the pointy end faces the Earth.
You know the name of the first person on the Moon, but who was the last? The dubious honour goes to Gene Cernan, who left the lunar surface on December 14 1972. His final words before their module lifted off were: "Okay, Jack. Let's get this mother outta here."
Humans are set to return to the Moon in the newly-commissioned Orion spacecraft – described by one Nasa spokesman as "Apollo on steroids". Don't hold your breath, though – the mission has been pencilled in for 2019.
We can only ever see one side of the moon because it has "synchronous rotation". This means that it takes as long to rotate on its axis as it does to make one orbit around the Earth, which is why the same side is always pointed our way. Think about it!
There may be quite a few American flags planted on its surface, but the Moon can never be claimed as any one nation's property. This is thanks to the Outer Space Treaty, which sounds like something out of Star Trek but is an actual agreement between more than 100 countries that preserves the Moon as a neutral territory for all mankind.
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