Man in the Moon: Data From NASA Orbiter Explains How the Lunar Face Became What It Is Now

For someone who has ever gazed up at the full moon, he might notice a face that's looking back at him, and this appearance is called the "man in the moon."

For billions of years, asteroid impact craters, as well as the aftermath of lunar volcanic eruptions, gave the moon its iconic look, a Live Science report said.

Lava from such eruptions frequently filled lunar craters, where they hardened into dark volcanic rock, making them stand out, and providing the moon with its "facial" traits.

Such likeliness has stayed over the eons because of the absence of an atmosphere and plate tectonics, which could have otherwise distorted or destroyed the ancient geological features of the moon.

Lunar Craters Investigated

In the study published in the Nature Astronomy journal, planetary scientist Ya Huei Huang, from MIT, investigates lunar craters and how the moon's surface came to be what it is at present.

The expert said the asteroids, as well as the fragments in the early history of the Solar System, were massive because of planet-forming occurrences.

Such large impactors can form a huge size of impact creator at the surface. The moon formed approximately 4.4 billion years back, likely shortly after a Mars-size protoplanet called Theia collided with the young Earth, breaking off a huge glob of the planet that eventually turned out to be the moon.

It was then that the moon started getting a face-lift, John Fairweather, a doctoral student in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University in Australia said.

During this time, the major planets' orbits, asteroid belts, as well as planetary rings were not yet stable, and rocks and materials were being pushed and pulled in each direction around the sun.

The Moon's Face

The moon, nevertheless, is pockmarked with more than simply craters. Volcanoes used to erupt on the moon when it was temperamental and young, between roughly 4.1 billion and three billion years back, explained Fairweather.

When lava oozed into large craters, it created a feature called "mare," the Latin word for ocean, a News CBC report specified.

These maria, plural for the mare, appear darker than their surroundings since gobs of lava hardened into particularly dark volcanic rock like basalt. The maria took on rounded shapes as well, that vaguely resemble the human face's features.

When it comes to the Moon's face, it is the most distinguishable characteristic seen from Earth, the dichotomy of dark mare and bright highland, explained Huang. Moreover, the maria formed from those large basins flooded by episodes of eruptions of volcanoes.

Lastly, the remains of these epic collisions like the South Pole-Aitken Basin remain visible on the moon today and appear like a multitude of lunar eyes from a distance. Huang thinks the Imbrium basin, the next largest basin on the moon, is part of its face.

Related information about the man in the moon is shown on Something Incredible's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Moon on Science Times.