15 Common Myths About The Moon

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From a moon made of dairy products to the possibility that the moon doesn’t even exist, we count 15 of the most bizarre theories ever sprung up about our favourite celestial body

15 – A Rabbit on the Moon,

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  • A story begun in Chinese poems that tells of a rabbit that stands on hind legs in the shade of a cinnamon tree alongside his toad friend, pounding herbs to create an elixir of immortality
  • Other cultures had different interpretations of the same myth, especially in Japan and Korea where it was believed the rabbit simply pounded ingredients for a rice cake
  • Before the first moon landing in 1969, the Apollo 11 crew were told to watch out for a 4000 year old Chinese girl and a rabbit standing on hind legs, to which Michael Collins replied,
  • “Okay. We’ll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.”

14 – The Moon Doesn’t Exist,

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  • A popular theory that what we’re seeing in the sky is just a fancy illusion, a CGI projection created after the moon was destroyed long ago to keep people from going mad
  • There have been youtube videos claiming a power glitch in the moon’s artificial electrical system had it vanish from sight for a few milliseconds
  • If this theory turned out to be true, it would spell disaster for the astronauts currently on their way to land on the moon – oh wait, no, this happened over 40 years ago, never mind

13 – The Moon Allows Pregnancy,

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  • Back in early civilisation, people really didn’t know what they were doing – fertility was believed to be influenced by smoke and meditation, but many cultures believed the moon had a huge hand in it
  • Since pregnancies came in waves when the full moon approached, one Assyrian doctor wrote and based his ovulation charts on the phases of the moon
  • If the moon was in the same phase as that when they were born, babies would come easier – gods and deities were based on the moon, and many hopeless about not being able to father offspring turned to this belief

12 – The Moon is Made of Cheese,

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  • A common belief for any that watched Wallace and Gromit when they were kids, the myth that we could bring some crackers to the moon and set up a picnic
  • The idea of a moon built of green cheese first came up in the early 1500s and for a long time, it was the common belief, especially in children all the way up to the 1900s
  • When kids were asked what else they thought the moon was made of, most claimed yellow people, dead people and God

11 – Earth’s Shadow Blocks the Moon,

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  • A surprisingly huge amount of people are under the belief that when the Earth passes between the sun and moon, our colossal shadow causes the phases of the moon
  • In reality, the sun always lights up the moon and Earth barely ever gets in the way except for during a lunar eclipse – the rest of the time our rotation just means we can’t see parts of the moon at any given time
  • Either that, or the moon cheese just grows black mould and we need the great cosmic cow to produce some more so everyone can get pregnant

10 – Civilisations on the Moon,

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  • A discovery made in 1835, published in The Sun magazine based in New York, articles claiming the existence of bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal beavers and bat-like humanoids roaming the Moon
  • For weeks, New York went into an uproar, everyone believing the story and some even donating to charities that wished to send envoys to the Moon to save the poor, unwashed Man-bats
  • It was only later that people realised it was all a hoax, a commentary imploring people not to trust supposed “scientific research” so seriously

9 – No Gravity on the Moon,

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  • This is less of a myth and more of a misunderstanding – people naturally assume, since astronauts can jump metres high, that there is no gravity in the moon
  • Now, if this were true, nothing would hold these people on the moon’s surface – they would float away as soon as they landed
  • The amount of gravity on the moon is about 1/6th the amount found on Earth, bouncy, but just enough so you won’t float away and end up in outer space where – believe me – it’s not so great

8 – The Moon is Hollow,

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  • A spin-off of the old myth about Earth being hollow, either filled with mole-people or another universe – but what gave a hollow moon credence is how similar it appears to comets and meteors
  • The gravitational pull while it spins around Earth is determined by mass, and a hollow moon would need a ridiculously dense crust to achieve the orbit it currently has
  • NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong has gone on record describing sounds from the moon to ring like a bell, leading many to believe the claim of a hollow bell-like Moon
  • Later research has shown moonquakes there act different to earthquakes, giving off the sound of a bell even though the moon is dense

7 – The Moon is a Spaceship,

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  • Extending the notion of a hollow moon, two Soviet scientists once hypothesised that the moon is in fact, a hollowed out spaceship used by advanced extraterrestrials
  • Once again though, astronomers pointed out that a hollow spaceship planet couldn’t possibly maintain its mass and gravitational field if the core happened to be dense
  • As exciting as the prospect of a local Death Star may seem, the reality is our moon is a giant hunk of rock with nothing interesting on it

6 – The Moon is Filled with Aliens,

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  • It was in the 1820s shortly before the report about civilisations of creatures on the moon that we find a Bavarian astronomer Franz Von Paula who claimed to have seen aliens on the moon – with a clear amount more authenticity than a hollow spaceship full of aliens
  • Using sophisticated buildings, forts and roads, the lunarians as he titled them were also taken notice by a prominent British astronomer who made regular observations on the alien architectural construction
  • Then we find out, well, actually, no – the aliens they thought they saw was actually moon dust, and the buildings, also moon dust – big piles of it

5 – Full Moon Promotes Insanity,

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  • A belief due to the awe-inspiring spectacle of a full moon that people would turn crazy, including pets – running wild, crime and hospital visits increased by a significant degree
  • For a long time the myth may have actually been true, policemen swore criminals got more rowdy on full moon nights, and even vets reported they took in more pets around full moon
  • In 1985 an official investigation found that none of it had any basis in science, it was all pure coincidence – although they did admit vet visits did increase simply because more people let their dog outside on bright nights

4 – Microbes Found on the Moon,

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  • It was during the Apollo 12 mission that a camera probe which returned to Earth was found to harbour a mysterious bacteria Streptococcus Mitis – to which nobody knew the origin
  • At the time, it was generally assumed some type of sterilisation procedure had gone wrong, allowing an Earthly microbe to reach the moon
  • In 2007, NASA funded a study to confirm the breach in sterilisation, and in 2011 three researchers authored a paper that assessed the validity of the claim, as well as discussing the ramifications for future missions

3 – The Moon Changes Size,

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  • An attempt to explain the different moon phases in the olden days, the Inuit people from Greenland that named their Moon god Anningan
  • Annigan would chase the sun goddess around the sky, all the while getting thinner from malnutrition – leading to the illusion we know today as the crescent moon
  • There’s also another modern example known as Moon illusion, where the moon appears to get bigger as it descends into the horizon due to an optical illusion

2 – A Dark Side of the Moon,

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  • We all know that the moon only ever points one face towards us at any given time, but most are under the impression the other side is darkened since it, y’know, faces the endless black of space
  • In reality the opposite is true – it’s illuminated by the sun just as frequently as the side we see, it just happens to be on the other side
  • To which only 40% of the moon’s surface is ever “unseen” by us – the moon does turn in the sky, but only on a slightly skewed angle

1 – The Moon is a Man’s Face

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  • Whether you know it from the Mighty Boosh, the Legend of Zelda or the iconic 1902 fantasy film – a lot of us are familiar with a moon that has a human face
  • But many have drawn diagrams illustrating such a familiarity, even written songs and stories based on the fantastic idea
  • Many took the lack of spin in regards to the moon’s orbit as proof that it must be a hologramatic human face lived on by aliens, bison, microbes, bat-men, cheese, elixir-brewing rabbits all with the intention on getting your wife pregnant
  • When in reality, it’s a giant ass ball of rock

 

 

 

 

 

LINKS
——–

http://www.history.com

http://www.livescience.com

http://moonphases.info

http://earthsky.org

http://en.wikipedia.org

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