“Living on the Moon: Day-Night Cycles, Gravity, and Human Challenges”

Jakarta –

The United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hopes that humans will be able to live on the Moon in the next decade. Humans who colonized the Moon will experience this.

The day-night period on Earth which generally occurs within a day, depending on the position on Earth, will not be found on the Moon. On the Moon, the day cycle lasts for 2 weeks Earth time, as well as the night lasts 2 weeks. Why did it happen?

Moon-Earth influence each other. While the Moon’s gravitational pull affects the Earth’s ocean tides, Earth’s gravity causes the Moon to elongate slightly on the side closest to Earth and farthest from Earth.

Different gravitational forces on the near and far sides of the Moon “bulge” due to Earth’s gravity, creating a moment of force that acts to change the Moon’s rotation period so that it matches its orbital period. This is known as “tidal locking” or “tidal locking”.

Because the Moon rotates at the same time as it orbits around Earth, it always appears to show the same side as seen from Earth. The Moon’s rotation period is 29 days, 12 hours, and 44 minutes. Therefore, Moon colonists will experience about two weeks of daylight, followed by about two consecutive weeks of nights, as reported by Science Focus.

Of course, from the near side of the Moon, Earth appears to remain in the same position in the sky as the stars rise and set – although Earth’s exact position depends on where it is on the Moon. The phases of the Earth will change, as it does for the Moon during a lunar month, but the Earth itself will appear to rotate once in a little over 24 hours.

When the Moon experiences night, the Earth will appear fully illuminated by the Sun so that it looks like ‘full Earth’ like the full moon when viewed from Earth. Meanwhile, when a ‘new Earth’, like the ‘new moon’ seen from Earth, the Earth looks dark and shows the part of the night that is not illuminated by the sun. Because Earth is about four times larger than the Moon, solar eclipses visible from the Moon last much longer than those on Earth. Whenever people on Earth see a total lunar eclipse, people living on the Moon will see a total solar eclipse.

According to the NASA website, here are the facts on the Moon:

1 Day on the Moon = 653 hours of Earth time, equivalent to 27.2 Earth days
1 Year on the Moon = 27.32 Earth days
Temperature on the Moon = -232⁰ Celsius to 122.7⁰ Celsius
Circumference of the Moon = 10,916 km
Gravity = 1.62 meters/second²

Meanwhile, the following facts on Earth:

1 Day on Earth = 23.9 hours
1 Year on Earth = 365.24 days
Temperature on Earth = -87⁰Celsius to 57⁰Celsius
Circumference of the Earth = 40,075 km
Gravity = 9.78 meters/second²

Human Challenges When Colonizing the Moon

From the data above it is clear, if humans colonize the Moon they have to adapt to lower gravity than on Earth. Then the days and nights are longer, the temperatures are very extreme compared to Earth, very cold and very hot.

In addition, the Moon’s environment is very dangerous because it has no atmosphere and is highly exposed to cosmic radiation which can be harmful to human health. Quoted from Live Science, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, Bill Cooke, explained that the Moon’s conditions are unlike Earth because it has no atmosphere, making it more fragile.

Even though the atmosphere is an important shield that can make a meteor destroyed when it hits it. For this reason, the Moon is actually vulnerable to any rocks flying at it.

NASA studies that around the Earth and Moon there are many space rocks or meteoroid fluxes of various sizes, dust, to small asteroids measuring 1 meter. When counting small rocks that are 1 millimeter in size, the number of objects that hit the Moon cannot be counted precisely. But Bill said about 1,100 tonnes could collide with the moon each day. As for meteors, there are at least 100 meteoroids the size of ping pong balls that hit the Moon.

“That’s about 33,000 meteoroids a year. Despite their small size, each of these ping pong ball-sized rocks hits the surface with the force of 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms) of dynamite,” Bill said.

Not only small ones, larger meteoroids such as those with a diameter of 2.5 meters also hit the moon. But that rarely happens.

Now, the Moon is about 4.5 billion years old. With so many collisions, it’s no wonder that the surface is filled with various kinds of craters that are not smooth due to these collisions.

Watch Video “My! These are 4 NASA Astronauts Who Will Fly to the Moon“

(nwk/nwk)