Question: Hey Guys, I have a real love for outerspace and the planets and one thing i have always wanted to know is why does the moon look like it is cheese? And also why does it is it true that if you lay a foot on the moon it will remain visible there forever?
The cheese like look your referring to is caused by the moon being bombarded by asteroids etc that crater the surface. Lots of the asteroids would have burnt up in Earths atmosphere but as the moon does not have an atmosphere they just smash into the surface.
As for the footprint, I believe this is true for the same reason, no atmosphere. With no atmosphere there is no wind and nothing to blow the dust around and cover up the footprints.
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James, good answer, but I may as well add something.
The footprints remain partly due to the lack of air movement, as there is no air, but mostly because of the shape of moon dust.
Moon dust is very jagged. A lot of earth substrate is smoothed out due to weathering. So think about rocks in a stream and they are often very smooth because of the weathering. Because moon dust has not had this it has remained jagged.
This jaggedness means that when you push your foot into it, the print is held because the dust holds in place rather than sliding back down.
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I’ve always been puzzled by the reference to the Moon looking like cheese, because I’ve never seen the similarity. Perhaps this refers to the full Moon, sometimes when it is rising, it has a yellowish or orange colour, due to the light shining through a lot of atmosphere. When this happens, the shorter wavelengths of light (blue, green etc) get absorbed and the light that gets through is of longer wavelength (yellow, orange, red). The yellow Moon could look a bit like cheese, I suppose. This is the same effect that makes the rising and setting Sun look red.
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Hi jamesy and shaunm,
Interesting question, and well answered by James, Dustin and Steven.
Out of interest from me, why do you think the moon looks like cheese? Is because of all the craters? I was always reminded more of a boiled egg yolk than cheese!
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