Glossarbegriffe: Mond

Also known as Erdmond

Description: Der Mond ist ein Himmelskörper, der nicht von sich aus leuchtet, sondern der Sonnenlicht reflektiert. Je nachdem, wie die Sonne, der Mond und die Erde zueinander stehen, entstehen dadurch die charakteristischen Mondphasen. Der Mond ist der einzige große natürliche Satellit der Erde. Was Größe und Masse betrifft, steht der Mond an fünfter Stelle der natürlichen Satelliten im Sonnensystem. Da auch andere natürliche Satelliten als Monde bezeichnet werden, bezeichnen wir "unseren" Mond manchmal auch als Erdmond.

Im Vergleich zu anderen Monden des Sonnensystems ist der Mond im Verhältnis zur Größe des Planeten, den er umkreist, am größten. Der Mond umkreist die Erde auf einer elliptischen Bahn in einem durchschnittlichen Abstand von 384.000 km zur Erde. Er hat keine Atmosphäre und besteht aus ähnlichen Materialien wie die Erden selbst, mit einem eisenhaltigen Kern und gesteinshaltigen äußeren Schichten. Diese Ähnlichkeit ist kein Zufall: Soweit wir wissen, bildete sich der Mond aus den Trümmern einer Kollision zwischen der Erde und einem marsgroßen Protoplaneten vor etwa 4,5 Milliarden Jahren. Der größte Teil seines Materials stammt aus dem ursprünglichen Erdmantel.

Die Mondoberfläche hat dunkle Bereiche, die als Mare bekannt sind, sowie hellere Hochländer und ist übersät von Kratern. Die Oberfläche des Mondes ist 3,79 x 10⁷ Quadratkilometer groß, sein Volumen beträgt 2,20 x 10¹⁰ Kubikkilometer und seine Masse 7,35 x 10²² kg. Der genaue Wert der Umlaufzeit des Mondes um die Erde hängt vom Bezugsrahmen ab: Relativ zu den weit entfernten Fixsternen braucht 27,3 Tage für eine Umrundung ("siderische Periode"). Für einen Beobachter auf der Erde beträgt die Zeit zwischen zwei Neumonden 29,5 Tage ("synodische Periode").

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Term and definition status: The original definition of this term in English have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
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An astronaut in a white spacesuit stands on the grey lunar surface with a piece of equipment in-front of a lunar lander

Apollo 11 lunar activity

Bildunterschriften: NASA astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin installs a seismometer in front of the Apollo 11 Eagle lunar lander during an extravehicular activity (EVA) on the Moon. Neil Armstrong shot this photo during the first human mission to the surface of the Moon in 1969.
Bildnachweis: NASA/Project Apollo Archive credit link

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A halo is an optical phenomenon where circles or arcs of light are visible in the sky. Halos are caused a bright object such

Selene meets the Moon, by Sheila Wiwchar, Canada

Bildunterschriften: First place in the 2021 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Sun/Moon haloes. Photographed at Kaleida, Manitoba in Canada, this fisheye image beautifully captures the rare optical phenomena encircling the moon known as the “22° halo” and the horizontal white circle passing through the moon called the “paraselenic circle”. The white band circling the whole sky at the same altitude as the moon is named after Selene, the ancient Greek Titan, famously called the goddess of the moon. The more commonly observed counterpart produced by the sun is known as the parhelic circle, named after the Greek god of the sun, Helios. Both the 22° halo and the paraselenic circle are produced due to reflection of the moonlight from near vertical surfaces of ice crystals. Parts closer to the moon are caused due to external reflections, whereas those further away are created due to internal reflections. The constellation of the big dipper at the center makes this image even more spectacular. Can you spot it?
Bildnachweis: Sheila Wiwchar/IAU OAE

License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons

A composite of images of the Moon. Along the sequence of images, the Moon's colour changes from grey to red and back to grey.

Red Moon, by Daniel Henrion, France

Bildunterschriften: Third place in the 2021 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Total lunar eclipse. Time-lapse images of a total supermoon lunar eclipse that took place on 28 September 2015. The photos show the Moon during the time it moved through the Earth´s umbra: Earth´s umbra touched the Moon´s outer limb at 1.07 a.m. UTC (upper left corner) and left the Moon´s surface at 4.27 a.m. UTC (lower right corner).
Bildnachweis: Daniel Henrion/IAU OAE

License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons

The Moon behind jagged, snowy mountains. The lower two thirds of the Moon are darker and redder than the upper third

The eclipsed Moon sets near the Rochetta di Prendera, Dolomiti Unesco, by Alessandra Masi, Italy

Bildunterschriften: First place in the 2021 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Total lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon moves into the Earth`s shadow. This is the case when the Sun, Earth and Moon are exactly or very closely aligned. The reddish light reflected from the lunar surface is caused by sunlight that has been refracted on its way through Earth´s atmosphere in the direction of the Moon. It appears reddish because of the Rayleigh scattering of bluer light. The round shape of the Earth's shadow visible on the lunar surface was a proof for Aristotle that the Earth must be a sphere. This photo shows the eclipsed Moon that sets near the Rochetta di Prendera, Dolomiti Unesco, Italy, on 21 January 2019.
Bildnachweis: Alessandra Masi/IAU OAE

License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons

Full moon

Bildunterschriften: The image shows the nearly full Moon observed with a small telescope and a DSLR camera.
Bildnachweis: Luc Viatour credit link

License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Creative Commons Namensnennung - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 Unported icons

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