I Can’t Sleep - The Moon | Calm Bedtime Reading for Sleep

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

Drift off with calm bedtime reading about the Moon to ease insomnia and restless nights. This soothing episode explores Earth’s only natural satellite, from its phases and surface features to its role in tides, culture, and exploration. Benjamin’s gentle cadence turns the story of the Moon into a peaceful journey of learning and rest. With no whispering or hypnosis—just calm, fact-filled storytelling—you’ll find stress fading, your mind quieting, and sleep arriving naturally. Press play, look to the Moon in your imagination, and drift into rest. Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the Discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from the Wikipedia article on Moon, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. Read the full article: Wikipedia – Moon. Happy sleeping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to a Glassbox media podcast. What if I told you that most of the modern day self-help advice you've been hearing could actually make you worse? The key to a better life isn't about feel-good gimmicks that sound catchy. The Mentally Stronger Podcast gives you access to a licensed therapist who shares science-backed tools that will actually change your life. Hi, I'm Amy Morin, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer, and international best-selling author. In each episode, we cover research-back strategies, like how to stop relying on willpower and start creating habits for lasting change. And the five mental strength-building exercises you can do from your couch.

I also speak to world-class experts like Dr. Nicole Kane, who shares how to permanently heal anxiety by addressing the root cause. With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self-doubt, conquer challenges, and become stronger than ever with therapist-approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast, where I read random articles to pour you to sleep with my soothing voice. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled Moon.

Earth's moon is an astronomical body that orbits the planet and acts as its only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the solar system and the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits, its primary. The moon is, after Jupiter's satellite I.O., the second densest satellite in the solar system, among those whose densities are known. The moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth.

The most widely accepted explanation is that the moon formed from the debris left over after a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body called Thaya. New research of moon rocks, although not rejecting the Thea hypothesis, suggests that the moon may be older than previously thought. The moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth, and thus always shows the same side to Earth, the near side. The near side is marked by dark volcanic Maria that fill the spaces between the bright ancient crustal highlands

and the prominent impact craters. After the sun, the moon is the second brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earth's sky. Its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky, it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt.

Its gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and the slight lengthening of the day. The moon's average orbital distance is 384,402 kilometers, or 1.288 light seconds. This is about 30 times the diameter of Earth. The moon's apparent size in the sky is almost the same as that of the sun, since the star is about 400 times the lunar distance and diameter. therefore the moon covers the sun nearly precisely during a total solar eclipse. This matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future because the moon's

distance from Earth is gradually increasing. The moon was first reached in September 1959 by the Soviet Union's Luna 2, an unmanned spacecraft, followed by the first successful soft landing by Luna 9 in 1966. The United States NASA of NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned lunar missions to date, beginning with the first manned orbital mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11 in July 1969. These missions returned lunar rocks which have been used to develop a geological understanding of the moon's origin, internal structure, and the moon's later history.

Since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, the moon has been visited only by unmanned spacecraft. Both the moon's natural prominence in the earthly sky and its regular cycle of phases as seen from Earth have provided cultural references and influences for human societies and cultures since time immemorial. Such cultural influences can be found in language, lunar calendar systems, art and mythology. The usual English proper name for Earth's natural satellite is the moon, which in non-scientific text is usually not capitalized. The noun moon is derived from Old English Mona,

which, like all Germanic language cognates, stems from proto-Germanic Mano, which comes from Proto-Indo-European means moon. month, which comes from the proto-Indo-European root me to measure, the month being the ancient unit of time measured by the moon. Occasionally the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry the name has been used to denote personification of Earth's moon. The modern English adjective pertaining to the moon is lunar, derived from the Latin word for the moon, Luna. The adjective selenic, usually only

used to refer to the chemical element selenium, is so rarely used to refer to the moon that this meaning is not recorded in most major dictionaries. It is derived from the ancient Greek word for the moon, selina, from which is, however, also derived the prefix seleno, as in selenography, the study of the physical features of the moon, as well as the element named selenium. Both the Greek goddess Selenna and Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia. The names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as Mapalune, Paracinthian, and Selenocentric. The name Diana comes from the Proto-Indo-European Dio, heavenly, which comes from the pie root,

to shine, which in many derivatives means sky, heaven, and cod, and is also the origin of Latin Dia's day. The moon formed 4.51 billion years ago, some 60 million years after the origin of the solar system. Several forming mechanisms have been proposed, including the fission of the moon from Earth's crust through centrifugal force, which would require two great an initial spin of Earth, a gravitational capture of a preformed moon, which would require an unfeasibly extended atmosphere of Earth to dissipate the energy of the passing Moon, and the co-formation of Earth and the Moon together in the primordial accretion disk,

which does not explain the depletion of metals in the Moon. These hypotheses also cannot account for the high angular momentum of the Earth-moon system. The prevailing hypothesis is that the Earth-moon system formed after an impact of a Mars-sized body, named Thea, with the proto-Earth giant impact. The impact blasted material into Earth's orbit, and then the material accreted and formed the moon. The moon's far side has a crest that is 50 kilometers thicker than that of the near side. This is thought to be because the moon fused from two different bodies.

This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence. 18 months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartman, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists. You have 18 months. Go back to your Apollo data. Go back to your computer. Do whatever you have to, but make up your mind. Don't come to our conference unless you have something to say about the moon's birth.

At the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most consensual theory. Before the conference, there were partisans of the three traditional theories, plus a few people who were starting to take the giant impact seriously. And there was a huge apathetic middle who didn't think the debate would ever be resolved. Afterward, there were essentially only two groups, a giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early soul,

system. Computer simulations of giant impacts have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the angular momentum of the Earth-moon system. These simulations also show that most of the moon derived from the impactor rather than the Proto-Earth. However, more recent simulations suggest a larger fraction of the moon derived from the Proto-Earth. Other bodies of the inner solar systems such as Mars and Vesta have, according to meteorites from them, very different oxygen and tungsten isotopic compositions compared to Earth. However, Earth and the Moon have nearly identical isotopic compositions. The isotopic equalization of the Earth-Moon system might be explained by the post-impact

mixing of the vaporized material that formed a two, although this is debated. The impact released a lot of energy, and then the released material reocreted into the Earth-moon system. This would have melted the outer shell of Earth, and thus formed a magma ocean. Similarly, the newly formed moon would also have been affected and had its own lunar magma ocean. Its depth is estimated from about 500 kilometers to 1,737 kilometers. While the giant impact hypothesis might explain many lines of evidence, some questions are still unresolved, most of which involve the moon's composition. In 2001, a team at the Carnegie Institute of Washington reported the most precise measurement of the isotopic signatures of lunar rocks. To their surprise, the rocks from the Apollo program had the same isotopic signatures as rocks from Earth.

However, they differed from almost all other bodies in the solar system. Indeed, this observation was unexpected because most of the material that formed the moon was thought to come from Thea, and it was announced in 2007 that there was less than a percent chance that Thea and Earth had identical isotopic signatures. Although Apollo Lunar samples had in 2012 the same titanium isotopes composition as Earth, which conflicts with what is expected if the moon formed far from Earth or is derived from Thea. These discrepancies may be explained by variations of the giant impact hypothesis. The moon is a differentiated body.

It has a geochemically distinct crust, mantle, and core. The moon has a solid iron-rich inner core with a radius possibly as small as 240 kilometers, and a fluid outer core primarily made of liquid iron with a radius of roughly 300 kilometers. Around the core is a partially molten boundary layer with a radius of about 500 kilometers. This structure is thought to have developed through the fractional crystallization of a global magma ocean

shortly after the moon's formation 4.5 billion years ago. Crystallization of this magma ocean would have created a matic mantle from the precipitation and sinking of minerals olivine, clinoporoxine, and orthoporoxine. After about

three quarters of the magma ocean it crystallized, lower density plageoclast minerals could form and float into a crust atop. The final liquids to crystallize would have been initially sandwiched between the crust and mantle, with a high abundance of incompatible and

heat-reducing elements. Consistent with this perspective, geochemical mapping made from orbit suggests the crust of mostly anorthoside. The moon rock samples of the flood lavas that erupted onto the surface from partial melting and the mantle confirm the mafic mantle composition, which is more iron-rich than that of Earth. The crest is on average about 50 kilometers thick. The moon is the second densest satellite in the solar system after I.O. However, the inner core of the moon is small with a radius of about 350 kilometers or less, around 20% of the radius of the moon. Its composition is not well understood, but is probably metallic iron alloyed with a small amount of sulfur and nickel. Analyses of the moon's time-variable rotation suggests that it is at least partially molten. The topography

of the moon has been measured with laser altimetry and stereo image analysis. Its most visible topographic feature is the giant far side south pole Aitken Basin, some 2,240 kilometers in diameter, the largest crater on the moon, and the second largest confirmed impact crater in the solar system. At 13 kilometers deep, its floor is the lowest point on the surface of the moon. The highest elevations of the surface are located directly to the northeast, and it has been suggested might have been thickened by the oblique formation impact of the South Pole-Aken Basin. Other large impact basins such as Embryum, Serenotitis, Chrysium, Smithi, and Orientale, also possess regionally low elevations and elevated rims.

The far side of the lunar surface is on average about 1.9 kilometers higher than that of the near side. The discovery of false, scarped cliffs by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter suggests that the moon has shrunk within the past billion years by about 90 meters. Similar shrinkage features exist on Mercury. A recent study of over 12,000 images from the orbiter has observed that Mare Frigoris near the North Pole a vast basin assumed to be geologically dead, has been cracking and shifting. Since the moon doesn't have tectonic plates,

its tectonic activity is slow, and cracks develop as it loses heat over the years. The dark and relatively featureless lunar planes, clearly seen with the naked eye, are called Maria, Latin for seas, singular mare. as they were once believed to be filled with water. They are now known to be vast solidified pools of ancient basaltic lava.

Although similar to terrestrial basalts, lunar basalts have more iron and no minerals altered by water. The majority of these lavas erupted or flowed into the depressions associated with impact basins. Several geologic provinces containing shield volcanoes and volcanic domes are found within the near side Maria. Almost all Maria are on the near side of the moon and cover 31% of the surface of the near side, compared with 2% of the far side. This is thought to be due to concentration of heat-producing elements under the crust on the near side, seen on geochemical maps obtained by lunar prospector's gamma ray spectrometer, which would have caused the underlying mantle to heat up,

partially melt, rise to the surface, and erupt. Most of the moon's mare basalts erupted during the embryoom period 3 to 3.5 billion years ago, although some radiometrically dated samples are as old as 4.2 billion years ago. Until recently, the youngest eruptions dated by, crater counting appeared to have been only 1.2 billion years ago. In 2006, a study of Ina, a tiny depression in Lacus Felicitates, found jagged, relatively dust-free features that, because of the lack of erosion by unfalling debris, appeared to be only 2 million years old.

Moonquakes and releases of gas also indicate some continued lunar activity. In 2014, NASA announced widespread evidence of young lunar volcanism at 70 irregular mare patches, identified by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter, some less than 50 million years old. This raises the possibility of a much warmer lunar mantle than previously believed, at least on the near side where the deep crust is substantially warmer because of the greater concentration of radioactive elements. Just prior to this, evidence has been presented for two to 10 million years younger basaltic volcanism inside Lowell Crater, Orientale Basin, located in the transition zone between the near and far sides of the moon. An initially hotter mantle and or local enrichment of heat-producing elements in the mantle

could be responsible for prolonged activities also on the far side in the Orientali Basin. The lighter colored regions of the moon are called Tere, or more commonly, highlands, because they are higher than most maria. They have been radiometrically dated to having formed 4.4 billion years ago, and may represent Plagio-class accumulates of the lunar magma ocean. In contrast to Earth, no major lunar mountains are believed to have formed as a result of tectonic events. The concentration of the maria on the near side likely reflects the substantially thicker crust of the highlands of the far side, which may have formed in a slow velocity impact of a second moon of Earth,

a few tens of millions of years after their formation. The other major geologic process that has affected the moon's surface is impact cratering, with craters formed when asteroids and comets collided with the lunar surface. There are estimated to be roughly 300,000 craters wider than one kilometer on the moon's near side alone. The lunar geologic time scale is based on the most prominent impact events, including nectaris, embryom, and orientales structures characterized by multiple rings of uplifted material, between hundreds and thousands of kilometers in diameter, and associated with a broad

apron of ejective deposits that form a regional stratigraphic horizon. The lack of an atmosphere, weather, and recent geological processes mean that many of these craters are well preserved. Although only a few multi-ring basins have been definitively dated, they are useful for assigning relative ages. Because impact craters accumulate at a nearly constant rate, counting the number of craters per unit area can be used to estimate the age of the surface. The radiometric ages of impact melted rocks

collected during the Apollo missions cluster between 3.8 and 4.1 billion years old. This has been used to propose a late heavy bombardment of impacts. Blanket on top of the moon's crust is a highly committed broken into several particles, an impact garden surface layer called regolith, formed by impact processes. The finer regalith, the lunar soil of silicon dioxide glass, has a texture resembling snow and a scent resembling spent gum powder.

The regalus of older surfaces is generally thicker than for younger surfaces. It varies in thickness from 10 to 20 kilometers in the highlands and 3 to 5 kilometers in the maria. beneath the finely communicated regalus layer is the mega-regolith, a layer of highly fractured bedrock many kilometers thick. Comparison of high-resolution images obtained by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter has shown a contemporary crater production rate significantly higher than previously estimated. A secondary cratering process caused by distilled ejecta is thought to churn the top two centimeters of regalith a hundred times more quickly. than previous models suggested on a time scale of 81,000 years. Lunar swirls are enigmatic features found across the moon surface. They are characterized by high albedo, appear optically immature,

i.e. the optical characteristics of a relatively young regalus, and have often a sinuous shape. Their shape is often accentuated by low albedo regions, that wind between the bright swirls. Liquid water cannot persist on the lunar surface. When exposed to solar radiation, water quickly decomposes through a process known as photo-disassociation and has lost to space. However, since the 1960s, scientists have hypothesized that water ice may be deposited by impacting comets,

were possibly produced by the reaction of oxygen-rich lunar rocks and hydrogen from solar wind, leaving traces of water which could possibly persist in cold, permanent shadowed craters at either pole on the moon. Computer simulations suggest that up to 14,000 square kilometers of the surface may be in permanent shadow. The presence of usable quantities of water on the moon is an important factor in rendering lunar habitation. as a cost-effective plan. The alternative of transporting water from Earth would be prohibitively expensive. In years since, signatures of water have been found

to exist on the lunar surface. In 1994, the Bistatic radar experiment located on the Clementine spacecraft indicated the existence of small frozen pockets of water close to the surface. However, later radar observations by Aracibo suggests that these findings may rather be rocks ejected from young impact craters. In 1998, the neutron spectrometer on the lunar prospector spacecraft showed that high concentrations

of hydrogen are present in the first meter of depths in the regalith near the polar regions. Volcanic lava beds brought back to Earth aboard Apollo 15 showed small amounts of water in their interior. The 2008 Chandraian 1 spacecraft has since confirmed the existence of surface water ice using the onboard moon mineralogy mapper. The spectrometer observed absorption lines common to hydroxyl in reflected sunlight, providing evidence of large quantities of water ice on the lunar surface. The spacecraft showed that concentrations may possibly be as high as 1,000 ppm. Using the mapper's reflectance spectra, indirect lighting of areas in shadow-confirmed water ice within 20 degrees latitude of both poles in 2018. In 2009, Elcross sent a 2300 kilogram

impactor into a permanently shadowed polar crater and detected at least 100 kilograms of water in a plume of ejected material. Another examination of the Elcross data showed the amount of of detected water to be closer to 155 plus or minus 12 kilograms.