Lunar mare facts for kids
Mare ( (singular: mare) is the name for a great plain on the moon. Several such maria exist. They were formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. The plural form of mare is maria. The Latin word maria means seas. Because of their high amount of iron, they reflects less light than the highlands of moon. So, they appear dark to the naked eye. They are called sea because ancient astronomers looked at the Moon and thought they saw seas and oceans on the Moon. The maria cover about 16% of the surface of the Moon and most of them are in the side of the moon which is visible from Earth.
A lunar mare, Mare Tranquillitatis was the landing site for the first manned landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Apollo 11 landed at 0°40′27″N 23°28′23″E / 00.67408°N 23.47297°E .
Images for kids
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A global albedo map of the Moon obtained from the Clementine mission. The dark regions are the lunar maria, whereas the lighter regions are the highlands. The image is a cylindrical projection, with longitude increasing left to right from −180° E to 180° E and latitude decreasing from top to bottom from 90° N to 90° S. The center of the image corresponds to the mean sub-Earth point, 0° N and 0° E.
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Irregular mare patch – evidence of young lunar volcanism (12 October 2014)
See also
In Spanish: Mar lunar para niños
