Gravity on the Moon...

Thats quite astounding to have a gravity map of the Moon.
Is it available online.

For sure there is one of the Earth for launching missiles any time
any where on Earth, when accuracy is necessary of course.

reply to post by Studenofhistory


Some of these oddities about the moon, though, could potentially be explained by how the moon was originally formed. It is widely scientifically accepted that a large "mars-sized" body collided with earth around 4.5 billion years ago.

This site explains it quite well, actually.

Why this is a good hypothesis:
The Earth has a large iron core, but the moon does not. This is because Earth's iron had already drained into the core by the time the giant impact happened. Therefore, the debris blown out of both Earth and the impactor came from their iron-depleted, rocky mantles. The iron core of the impactor melted on impact and merged with the iron core of Earth, according to computer models.

Earth has a mean density of 5.5 grams/cubic centimeter, but the moon has a density of only 3.3 g/cc. The reason is the same, that the moon lacks iron.

The moon has exactly the same oxygen isotope composition as the Earth, whereas Mars rocks and meteorites from other parts of the solar system have different oxygen isotope compositions. This shows that the moon formed form material formed in Earth's neighborhood.

If a theory about lunar origin calls for an evolutionary process, it has a hard time explaining why other planets do not have similar moons. (Only Pluto has a moon that is an appreciable fraction of its own size.) Our giant impact hypothesis had the advantage of invoking a stochastic catastrophic event that might happen only to one or two planets out of nine.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What were some earlier ideas?

One early theory was that the moon is a sister world that formed in orbit around Earth as the Earth formed. This theory failed because it could not explain why the moon lacks iron.

A second early idea was that the moon formed somewhere else in the solar system where there was little iron, and then was captured into orbit around Earth. This failed when lunar rocks showed the same isotope composition as the Earth.

A third early idea was that early Earth spun so fast that it spun off the moon. This idea would produce a moon similar to Earth's mantle, but it failed when analysis of the total angular momentum and energy involved indicated that the present Earth-moon system could not form in this way.

By the time of the collision, enough time had passed for the "heavier" iron content of the mantle to sink down to the cores of both worlds. This explains alot and all the computer models suggest this really happened. Thus, the expelled molten material formed through a process called "gravitational accretion" when one large "glob" of this stuff started attracting more and more smaller globs until only one large "glob" of mantle was left. Even if some of the mantle had enough time to fully solidify and become rock again, the gravitational accretion would have continued until all of these rocks were part of one single moon.

But why does one side of the moon always face earth? There are alot of possible contributing factors to consider with relation to this question. But some of the more important are..

- Tidal Locking
tidal bulges on the earth and moon which form from the gravitational effects between the two bodies. Currently, the side of the moon that permanently faces earth becomes "tugged" about 6% more than the opposite side. Shortly after the moon's birth, this would have been much greater. Eventually, these surface "tidal" bulges would have acted to somewhat normalize the synchronicity of the orbits of both bodies. Over time, this gravitational interaction with earth has caused the moon's rotation to slow slightly over time.. Making it more in sync with earth's. There are always other factors at play too though. In this case, we also have "Libration" to consider and the general fact that the moon's orbit is not exactly circular around the earth but slightly elliptical.
It's a very complex system.. But given the close vicinity of the moon to earth when it was initially formed, this would have created an extremely magnified Tidal Locking effect, which would have more quickly semi-synchronized the rotation of the two vs. orbital rotation and velocity since the gravitational influence between the two would have been much greater.
The two can never really truly be "synchronized" though as there are slight variations due to a combination of all these factors. But the idea is that the gravitational tidal effects stabilize the rotation of each other over time.

An extreme example of tidal locking is Jupiter and its moon Io. In this case, the tidal locking is so exaggerated that Io is always extremely volcanic and always changing shape.

- The speed at which the moon would have formed through gravitational accretion
It is now believed that between 1 and 100 years the molten material that makes up the moon had pretty much formed into one solid mass. This is extremely quick on these kinds of timescales. When you consider the speed at which the moon theoretically formed (which has basically been confirmed with computer models). There is also the factor of the rotation of the earth. The collision would've inevitably affected the rotation of BOTH bodies forever. We don't know if the earth rotated prior to the collision. We know that after the collision, it did.

The molten material that would have formed the initial, primary "glob" that would later become the moon would have generally formed rotationally in conjunction with the rotation of the earth (or at least somewhat). And even if there were slight differences in orbital movements of the "molten" moon vs. its rotation the tidal forces would have normalized this fairly quickly given the extremely close vicinity of the moon when it was originally formed an estimated 4.5 billion years ago. We now know that the moon is slowly being "slung-out" about 1 or 2 inches per year.

Molten rock would have formed while aligning itself with the gravitational "barycenter" between the two bodies. THIS website explains it nicely.

The Moon does not just go around the Earth. In reality, the two objects orbit about a common gravitational midpoint, called a barycenter. The mass of each object and the distance between them dictates that this barycenter is inside Earth, about three-fourths of the way out from the center.

So picture this: The center of the Earth actually orbits around this barycenter, once a month. The effect of this is very important. Think, for a second, of a spacecraft orbiting Earth. Its astronauts experience zero gravity. That's not because there's no gravity up there. It's because the ship and its occupants are constantly falling toward Earth while also moving sideways around the planet. This sets up a perpetual freefall, or zero-g.

Like the orbiting spaceship, the center of the Earth is in free-fall around the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system.

Here's the kicker: On the side of Earth opposite the Moon, the force of the Moon's gravity is less than at the center of the Earth, because of the greater distance. It can actually be thought of as a negative force, in essence, pulling water away from the Moon and away from Earth's surface -- a second high tide.

So when the moon was still molten, all these factors played a role into how it formed, orbited, rotated, and eventually solidified. It formed while under the direct influence of not just earth but the earth-moon system barycenter as well. And this would have created a moon somewhat synchronized with all of these factors. After that, tidal locking probably normalized the rotational vs. gravitation vs. orbit relationship between the moon and the earth. Thus, one side is always facing us.

-ChriS

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by DarkSecret

 

The moon is currently moving away from Earth. This is not to say that it has always been so.

You want a really scary thought? Consider if you are correct, and we have large bodies like our moon roaming errant in our solar system.

I don't follow a homogenous timeline, honestly. Who knows what was happening in our near vicinity before man started making recordings.

yeah the moon arrived here 4000 years ago to study humans. a few centuries ago it fired its impulse thrusters and it will go to warp as soon as it gets to a safe distance from earth...

after it leaves earth orbit the moon will be captured by the sun and will just become another planet like mercury. maybe by the time its orbit is stable it will collide with earth again and make sure humanity's bloody existence is wiped from the universe

Originally posted by BlasteR
If the scientists are right, then the moon formed after a mars-sized planet slammed into earth an extremely long time ago. The big reason the later apollo missions were largely geologic scientific missions was because we had no idea where the moon came from.

"If the scientists are right..." How often does that happen?

From Ingo Swan "Penetration"
page 88:

The Moon missions returned some 900 pounds of rock and soil samples. From these a curious factoid was ultimately revealed in 1973: some of the Moon rocks dated back to 5.3 billion years ago.
Thus between Earth and Moon, this factoid leaves an amusing discrepancy of some 2 billion years, with the errant moon rocks existing some 1 billion or so years before the solar system was formed.

The Moons age

Some of the Moon rocks that were brought back by the Apollo missions were dated as being older than any rocks found on the Earth. The Earth is thought to be around 4.6 billion years old, while rocks from the Moon were found to be around 5.3 billion years old. And the dust the rocks were found in is thought to be about a billion years older than that. This information conflicts with the theory that the Moon was produced by a collision the Earth had with another body early in its history.

tinwiki.org...

By examining tracks burned into moon rocks by cosmic rays, scientists have dated ... it was revealed that one moon rock was dated at 5.3 billion years old...

TGS HiddenMysteries :: Popular Authors :: Jim Marrs :: Alien Agenda
Hiddden Mysteries

Originally posted by Gregarious

 

Lear left when he sold the site.

Excuse me? Which site did John Lear sell? First I heard of that one...

Amazing the disinfo that goes around here at times...

Originally posted by Flux8
The Earth protects the near side of the moon from many impacts. The far side of the moon has no protection and therefore is riddled with far more impacts.

Per wikipedia-

"... The two hemispheres have distinctly different appearances, with the near side covered in multiple, large maria (Latin for 'seas,' since the earliest astronomers thought, wrongly, that these plains were seas of lunar water). The far side has a battered, densely cratered appearance with few maria. Only 2.5% of the surface of the far side is covered by maria,[1] compared to 31.2% on the near side..."

Image of the far side of the moon.
img13.imageshack.us...

[edit on 28-5-2009 by Flux8]

You could be forgiven for thinking that the earth protects the 'near side' of the moon, but in fact this is plain wrong.

What a lot of people don't realise (and with good reason, what with all the talk of near and far sides, and perpetually facing us the same way etc etc), the moon doesn't just sit there...in space, it does actually spin. It's easy to assume it doesn't though, as we always see the same 'face' of the moon.

This is another of those weird facts about the moon, that if taken together with all the other weird and frankly 'too coincidental' to be a coincidence type of fact, it certainly raises more questions than is answered.

Bottom line is, the moon is as vulnerable to meteorite and other impacts on both the near and far sides, as the moon revolves exposing all of it's surface to deep space.

Originally posted by BlasteR
The moon's gravity field is not necessarily "homogenous" because the gravity field of any planet or moon isn't. Especially earth's.

But it also depends on altitude or distance from the planet.. As gravity does become more "homogenous", in general, the further out you go in a moon or planet's gravitational sphere of influence.

If the scientists are right, then the moon formed after a mars-sized planet slammed into earth an extremely long time ago. The big reason the later apollo missions were largely geologic scientific missions was because we had no idea where the moon came from. What was found was pretty strong evidence to suggest the moon was once part of earth (or at least formed from material broken off from earth that eventually coalesced gravitationally to form one solid moon).

When you think about it, alot of the factors that would've eventually determined the geometry of the overall gravity field would've been things like the geometry of the core of this new body and the speed at which the material closer to the surface cooled over time.

It's highly unlikely that a moon with such a destructive birth would ever really have a perfect gravity field anyway. Especially when you consider that one side of the moon is constantly facing earth and that this inevitably affected the geometry of the resulting gravity field as well.. While the earth's gravitational force inevitably affected the orbit and orientation of the moon relative to earth at the same time.

But we also know that the moon is slowly drifting away from earth over time and noone has scientifically proven why.
It could just be weakening of earth's gravity field combined with the moon's sustained speed of orbit around the earth. Who knows.
But it is ironic how the very same laser ranging experiments set up by the apollo missions not only give us this data about the moon's slow drift away from earth but also prove that we really did land there.. (not to open up that can of worms).

-ChriS

[edit on 29-5-2009 by BlasteR]

[edit on 29-5-2009 by BlasteR]

It's not about having a 'perfect' gravitaional field (whatever perfect is), it's about having a totally unexpected and opposing gravitational field.

True, the Earths gravity does indeed fluctuate, depending on position on the earths surface and in altitude. So yea, you're right the Earth doesn't have a uniform gravity. BUT...the Earths gravity only deviates in uniformity by 0.5% across the globe. Basically is you stood at the North pole, you would weigh 0.5% more, than if you were standing at the equator, or high in the atmosphere.

The gravity anomaly on the moon, is different to this mild and gradual difference on Earth (or elsewhere in our system AFAWK), in that it is a sharply defined difference, so much so, that it is startling. We are talking about Positive and Negative gravity here, not half a percent diference acros the board.

Let's look at the implications...positive gravity means the gravity we are used to here on Earth and elsewhere...negative gravity is another kettle of fish altogether. What does the term 'negative gravity' actually mean in real terms?

Are they saying that the gravity is slightly weaker on the farside, in releation to the nearside? Well...no. If that was the case, we would still be in the realms of 'positive gravity', albeit weaker positive gravity, than that measured on the nearside. The phrase is 'negative gravity', not 'reduced gravity'. There is a difference.

You see what i mean by this...they may as well have said, 'We have located a lunar gravitational anomaly, that manifest in a strong positve gravitational force on the nearside of the moon, but we found a region, directly opposite to the positive gravity measured situated on the farside, that appears to have an ANTIGRAVITY value, or 'negative gravity' (minus, absence of, etc).

If it was simply a weaker gravitational force, they would have simply stated that "The gravity is somewhat weaker on the farside...although this is not strange as our own Earth's gravity field deviate somewhat depending on where one is situated on it's surface, so this is not entirely unexpected".

Tie all the loose facts surrounding the moon together, all the numerical 'coincidences', all the stories of bases, and indeed photo's missed by the censors or botched by them (clementine in particular), stories from antiquity, where there wasn't a moon in our orbit and so on, all at the VERY least point to the fact that the moon is not just a barren hunk of orbiting space debris caught by the Earths gravity long ago.

It is entirely possible that the moon is a natural body, but one that has undergone extensive and advanced engineering.
Not quite on the scale of a Dyson sphere (a solar system wide artificial shell or enclosure, surrounding our sun and all the planets and asteroids and debris from our system, used to build the enclosure for the purposes of creating a closed habitat, which in theory could then wander the universe), but certainly large and advanced enough to make our present Earthly efforts look primitive by comparison. I don't know. Someone does though...and they are not telling. (well most of them aren't)

Same old selfish human thinking that keeps dragging us down generation after generation. If WE have it, WE can exploit it, for OUR benefit, not THEIRS! That's why it's kept secret, it has nothing to do with people running wildly in the streets in panic (which would not happen, Orsen Wells test was really loaded), it has to do with 'We found it, we're going to exploit it before the rest of you do"

Edit to add:

The theory (hypothesis) that the moon is a cleaved off chunk of the Earth is full of holes. The major flaw in this view is the fact the moon is composed of material in the range of 1 - 1.5 Billion years OLDER than those found on Earth. How can the moon be older than the Earth, if it came from the Earth? It can't.

Now, it IS possible that the moon was a satellite of another body (Nibiru type) that came too close to Earth, and was captured. Maybe this explains the technological finds and various anomalies associated with the moon.

Perhaps before being ripped from it's original orbit, the moon was inhabited or at least visited regularly by the inhabitants of it's original parent planet, where ever or whatever planet that may be. But being originally from the Earth is out.

[edit on 30/5/2009 by spikey]

Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by spikey

 

No, spikey....sorry, please re-think your post.

Our planet, the Earth, rotates on its axis once about every 24 hours, yes??

The Moon, as it orbits the Earth, takes about 28 days to complete one orbit. Yes??

(not being exact, just making a point....)

The Moon, as it rotates about its axis, does so in about 28 days....which coincides with its orbit about the EARTH.

It is that simple.

The Earth/Moon system is actually a dual-planet system. Just observe the Phases of the Moon, as she orbits the Earth....remember that the big ole' thing that lights everything is the SUN!!!

OK??? Should begin to make sense, now......

Erm...yes...i know this...but i'm failing miserably to see the point your making though. You have just explained the orbital mechanics of the Earth and moon, which describes exactly what i said.

The viewer from Earth will never get to see the farside of the moon as their respective oribits and spin rates are in a synchronicity that effectively prevents this. A lunar orbit of 27.4 days, a lunar spin rate that matches it's orbital period, exactly all conspire to create this effect.

I'm seeing that you are spot on with your explaination of the orbits and spin rates, but i'm failing to see why you want me to rethink my post?

Originally posted by spikey
The gravity anomaly on the moon, is different to this mild and gradual difference on Earth (or elsewhere in our system AFAWK), in that it is a sharply defined difference, so much so, that it is startling. We are talking about Positive and Negative gravity here, not half a percent diference acros the board.

I think it is positive anomaly and negative anomaly, meaning stronger and weaker gravity on those places, not positive and negative gravity.

Originally posted by zorgon

Amazing the disinfo that goes around here at times...

Quite. I'm still waiting for your explanation as to why you are saying John Lear came up with this "theory" even though I posted a source dated 1975 describing the lunar gravity anomalies. This is a huge discrpancy hat I would appreciate an explanation to.

[edit on 5-30-2009 by Esoterica]

Originally posted by DangerDeath

gravitational field variation

That's an interesting formulation

Maybe instead of "variation" - "fluctuation"?
Center of gravity is always projected from the mass around, so Moon's center of gravity is not in the middle of the apparent sphere. Maybe the theory of "hollow Moon" has some credit to it?

First attempts to land on Moon ended in crashes, because the gravity was nothing like 1/6 of Earth's. It was actually 2/3 of Earth's gravity.

I found this in some of Lyne's works. Just google his name, there's plenty of his work on the Internet, but use your own criteria to judge whether it makes sense or not.

Gravity on the earth is not uniform either so do you think we have a hollow earth!
What we dont have is the difference in the level of gravity but I bet its tiny!!!!!
People on here jump to to many conclusions and tend to distort the real meaning of what has be said on posts I would say zorgon is a master at distorting the REAL MEANING and blowing things out of proportion on here!

Originally posted by zorgon

Amazing the disinfo that goes around here at times...

I couldn't have said it better myself!!!

Kudos, R. You have just exceeded yourself in rhetoric!!! (I left the rest of the post stet....)

reply to post by Esoterica

...John Lear came up with this "theory" even though I posted a source dated 1975 describing the lunar gravity anomalies.

Surely not the same John Lear that suggested Venus or Mercury has 'shirt-sleeves' weather? The 1975 source might have been retro-planted to discredit John...ahem...

reply to post by DarkSecret

How many coincidental numbers do you need before they stop being a coincidence?

Here are a list of 'coincidences' regarding the moon from the book I talked about in my post.

The Earth rotates 366 times in one year.
The Earth is 366% larger than the moon
The sun is 400 times larger than the moon.
The sun is 400 times further away from the Earth than the moon
The Earth turns on it's axis 40,000 kilometers each day.
The moon turns on it's axis 400 kilometers each day.
There are exactly 10,000 days in 366 lunar orbits.
There are 27.322 sidereal days in 1 lunar orbit.
4 times 27.322 equals 109.2
The moon is 27.322% as big as the Earth.
The sun is 109.28 times larger than the Earth.
The Earth's orbit at aphelion is equal to 109.26 solar diameters

You might think that you would get similar kinds of coincidences among our solar system's other planets and moons but you don't. The Sun, Earth and moon seem to have a very unique relationship.

I dare you to read the book (Who built the moon?) and then tell me it's all a coincidence.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by DarkSecret

 

How many coincidental numbers do you need before they stop being a coincidence?

Here are a list of 'coincidences' regarding the moon from the book I talked about in my post.

The Earth rotates 366 times in one year.
The Earth is 366% larger than the moon
The sun is 400 times larger than the moon.
The sun is 400 times further away from the Earth than the moon
The Earth turns on it's axis 40,000 kilometers each day.
The moon turns on it's axis 400 kilometers each day.
There are exactly 10,000 days in 366 lunar orbits.
There are 27.322 sidereal days in 1 lunar orbit.
4 times 27.322 equals 109.2
The moon is 27.322% as big as the Earth.
The sun is 109.28 times larger than the Earth.
The Earth's orbit at aphelion is equal to 109.26 solar diameters

You might think that you would get similar kinds of coincidences among our solar system's other planets and moons but you don't. The Sun, Earth and moon seem to have a very unique relationship.

I dare you to read the book (Who built the moon?) and then tell me it's all a coincidence.

alrighty then i guess we can just accept intelligent design.

or we can assume that today these values are true but millions of years earlier and many years after they won't. earth used to rotate much faster and it's constantly slowing down. the moon used to be much closer and it's constantly moving away. some of these numbers are obviously in relationship because these bodies are linked by gravity. remember they were both created from a big collision so there will be some momentum they retain and some numbers which will be in a constant relationship.

this one is a great example of selective data mining...

There are 27.322 sidereal days in 1 lunar orbit.
4 times 27.322 equals 109.2
The sun is 109.28 times larger than the Earth.

why 4? if you take 2 arbitrary numbers there will always be a convenient factor to apply to get one from the other.

any book writer will try to sell their books so obviously a book about the moon will include mathematical formulas to make it more believable. as i said if you look hard enough you will make lots of associations. fractals are another fascinating case of nature's work and they have some complicated math behind them. does that mean that river beds, shore lines or fjords are created by aliens or other kind of intelligence?


[edit on 30-5-2009 by DarkSecret]

reply to post by ArMaP

I think it is positive anomaly and negative anomaly, meaning stronger and weaker gravity on those places, not positive and negative gravity.

You are correct, it is only a term for higher or lower gravity.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
Here are a list of 'coincidences' regarding the moon from the book I talked about in my post.

The Earth rotates 366 times in one year.

365 1/4

The Earth is 366% larger than the moon

Correct!

The sun is 400 times larger than the moon.

Correct!

The sun is 400 times further away from the Earth than the moon

Correct

The Earth turns on it's axis 40,000 kilometers each day.

Almost, it turns at 40,764 or 40,184 km per day, depending on wheter you use a 24 hours day or a 23h 56m 4s day.

The moon turns on it's axis 400 kilometers each day.

Almost, it turns at 399.722 km per day.

There are exactly 10,000 days in 366 lunar orbits.

Correct!

There are 27.322 sidereal days in 1 lunar orbit.

Correct, and just another way of saying the same thing as above.

4 times 27.322 equals 109.2

Almost correct, it equals 109.28, that is usualy rounded to 109.3

The moon is 27.322% as big as the Earth.

Correct, and just another way of saying that the Earth is 366% bigger than the Moon.

The sun is 109.28 times larger than the Earth.

Using the Wikipedia values it gives me 109.17.

The Earth's orbit at aphelion is equal to 109.26 solar diameters

Correct!

So, ignoring the repeated coincidences (that way they are not coincidences, just another way of presenting things) and the "almost correct" values that mean that it isn't a coincidence but just a close value, we have these.

The Earth is 366% larger than the moon.
The sun is 400 times larger than the moon.
The sun is 400 times further away from the Earth than the moon.
There are exactly 10,000 days in 366 lunar orbits.
The Earth's orbit at aphelion is equal to 109.26 solar diameters.

So, what these mean?

Considering that the Earth's aphelion has no related value in this shorter list, I would have to take it from the list, so the only coincidences are the relation between the Sun and the Moon's distance and size (the one that makes total eclipses) and the relation between the size of the Earth when compared with the size of the Moon and the number of lunar orbits for a 10,000 period.

That was fun, now do the same for other planets.

reply to post by jkrog08


To be a little more specific, IIRC scientist will estimate a body's gravity assuming that it's a perfect sphere. Since planets and such are not perfect spheres, this gravity estimate isn't actually perfectly correct for all areas. Areas with a higher-then-estimated gravity have a positive anomaly and an area with less than estimated gravity have a negative anomaly.

EDIT: I think we need to stress that the word "anomaly" in science simply means something that deviates from the norm or what was expected. It doesn't carry the "Paranormal, Supernatural, or Conspiratorial" overtones it seems to on ATS. Being overcharged on your credit card bill is an anomaly, for example.

[edit on 5-30-2009 by Esoterica]

Originally posted by jkrog08
Regardless of the 100 page arguments we could all get into debating the origin of the gravity anomalies on Luna I think another main point of this thread is that John Lear said this and no one really believed him. So if you can take the abstract of this and just postulate real quick................... Okay ready?


If some of these things that were said and dismissed as crazy are actually true then shouldn't we start paying more attention to these people? I mean I think this grants Lear and others who have claimed inside knowledge more credibility IMO.

Quite right jkrog08, quite right.

I don't quite 'get' how any people just dismiss any hypothesis immediately out of hand, not even willing to consider alternative possibilities. Perhaps the conditioning is too effective on certain types. The majority are always going to go along with whatever the governors and 'official' scientists are saying. Always will IMO.

Even if glaringly obvious evidence to the contrary surfaced, that is out and out rock solid (No pun intended) proof we are being and have been for led down the garden path, in terms of what is actually the reality of what has been learned and what has been concocted to pass as real or the truth of things, there would still be a sizable portion of people that would argue against the unimpingeable proof.

But yeah, if they said this stuff a while ago, and now are proven right..there should be a lot of people applying more thought to perhaps there is something to this after all, and don't just dismiss people, because they happen to sometimes think outside of established and accepted teaching. However silly some of this stuff first sounds, sometimes...it's true.

reply to post by spikey


Thanks, I agree. But the thing is people don't want to experience a major paradigm shift. So it will literally take something that can not be denied for many to change. Of course the majority here on ATS are willing to accept that, some are not. Logical skepticism should NOT be confused with PSEUDOskepticism.