Some of the moons in our Solar System
are larger than some of the planets? Jupiter's moon Ganymede, the largest
moon in the Solar System, and Saturn's moon Titan are both larger than
the planets Mercury and Pluto. The Earth's Moon, Jupiter's moons Callisto,
Io, and Europa, and Neptune's moon Triton are all larger than Pluto, but
smaller than Mercury.
Contrary to popular belief, the Moon does have
an atmosphere. It is very thin. If you took all of the molecules in one
cubic centimeter of atmosphere from the Moon and lined them up, they would
fit inside the period of this sentence. If you took a cubic centimeter
of atmosphere from the earth as sea level and lined all of the molecules
up, it would go from the earth to the Moon and back again two and a half
times.
The surface speed record on the moon is 10.56
miles per hour. It was set in a lunar rover.
There are over 500,000 craters on the moon that
can be seen from the planet Earth.
Flying once around the moon is the equivalent
with a round trip from New York to London. (Earth is about four times the
size of the moon.)
It is a very curious fact that, although the pack
of 52 cards (standard playing deck) was ostensibly produced simply for
gaming, it contains a numerical symbolism which is related to the year
and to nature. The four suits correspond to the four seasons: Spring, Summer,
Autumn and Winter. They also remind us of the four winds: North, East,
South and West. The two colours, red and black, represent day and night.
The 52 cards represent the 52 weeks of the year. The four suits of 13 cards
each, correspond to the four quarters of the year, each having 13 weeks.
The twelve court cards are analogous to the twelve months of the year;
and to the twelve hours between noon and midnight. The face value, or pips,
of each suit, from Ace to ten, add up to 55. If we call the Jack 11, the
Queen 12, and the King 13, then the total of pips for each suit is 91.
Multiply this by 4, and it gives a grand total for the whole pack of 364
- plus 1, the Joker and we have 365, the number of days in the year. Furthermore,
the four suits of 13 cards each remind us of the four phases of the moon:
new moon, first quarter, full moon and last quarter. These four phases
make a lunar month and 13 lunar months are reckoned to the year.
Apollo Lunar Mission number 13 was aborted while
enroute to the moon in 1970 because of an explosion of a fuel cell in the
service module. This resulted in a loss of service module cryogenic oxygen
and consequent loss of capability to generate electrical power, to provide
oxygen and to produce water.The flight left the launching pad at 13:13
There is a correlation between the phase of the
moon and the frequency of emergency room cases in hospitals.
