Perigee moon 9 September, 2014
Ancient people would look at the moon, wondering what it was - they thought it was a perfect disc in the sky like the other stars and planets - and what it did.
Records show that civilisations tracked the moon and the stars well before Copernicus described the solar system as "heliocentric". A model where the Earth spun to provide day and night, orbitted the sun to provide seasons and years, and in turn the moon orbited the Earth.
1609
In 1609, the Italian astronomer Galileo pointed the first telescope toward the moon. The telescope was crude, but it helped him identify the features of the moon's landscape: mountains, craters, flat plains. Therefore, the moon must be solid and, indeed, reasonably spherical.
The moon was formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago when a young Earth collided with a very large object (at least the size of Mars) ejecting the raw materials that would eventually become the moon.
Contrary to the stories of childhood, the moon isn't actually made of cheese. In fact the surface is covered in a powdery dust called regolith.
The craters, or the moon's "highlands", are the oldest features we can see on the moon at more than four billion years old. The smoother maria is younger at only three to four billion.
source: NASA
Apollo 11 at takeoff. source: NASA
July 20, 1969 the human race made a giant leap. Off from Earth, and onto the moon.
