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With a diameter of 3,476 km, compared with 12,714 km, of the Earth, the Moon is greater than any other satellite of the Solar System. In some aspects it is like a twin Earth planet. Both bodies are gravitationally uncidos one to the other, so that the rotational period of the Moon around its axis fits exactly with its orbital period around the Earth (27 1/3 days); which means that always we see the same face of the Moon and that its moved away face more always is hides to the Earth.
Nevertheless, there is an essential difference between our planet and our satellite: the Moon is a world death, that practically does not have atmosphere, neither water in its surface, nor possibilities of life as we know it.
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Distance from the Earth 384,401 km Radius Mass Density Surface Gravity Escape Velocity Rotational Period Orbital Period Mean Orbit Velocity Orbit Eccentricity Orbit Inclination Mean Surface Temperature
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Like with planets, we can see the single Moon by means of reflected light. The flood of the New Moon or old, or the complete disc of the Full Moon, is in favor illuminated directly of the Sun, causing a cycle of 29 phases that last ½ days, growing from the new one to the flood passing by the first quarter, and soon decreasing to the disappearance of the old moon passing by a third quarter, and being arranged to the following New Moon. Sometimes we see a pretty phenomenon in the nocturnal sky, known like light earth, light cenicienta or the old Moon in arms of the new one, that is to say, the shaded effect of produced by the light reflected from the Earth that it gives in the dark part of the lunar disc, hidden of the light of the Sun.
Whereas satellite of a planet of medium size, the Moon is of a quite different category in the astronomical scheme in relation to the Sun. Nevertheless, from our centered human Earth perspective, the Sun and the Moon form a celestial pair. They are the two great lights of the sky, almost universally considered like the twin governors of the day and at night. In addition, the extraordinary circumstance occurs, almost more related to the myth and the poetry that with astronomy, of which in spite of their so different distances, both bodies pretend to have the same size approximately.
The symbolism associated to the Moon through different cultures and times gives, in principle, a printing of the amazing diversity, and usually is complex and paradoxical when is compared it with the relative incoherence of the meaning attributed to the Sun. Nevertheless, this evasive character, to its way is an authentic expression of the nocturnal lights always money changer and inconstante. The Moon pretends to have greater preeminence than the Sun in the prehistoric times, and it thinks that in most of the cultures the calendar it began as an account of the lunar months, instead of being an account of the solar stations. Of similar way, many megalíticos deposits with astronomical associations are dedicated to follow the orbit of the Moon. The name of Japanese God of the Moon, Tsuki-Yomi, derives from the Japanese words that they mean moon and accountant.
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The God of the Moon of old Egypt, Tot , which sometimes it imagines with dog head, or like a baboon that takes on the head the increasing Moon, shows one old sacerdotal interpretation of the fact that the Moon and the Sun is released to each other, when leaving and putting themselves. Whereas the God Sun Ra laid way by the infraworld in the hours of the dark, to Tot it was required to him for his place in the superior world. In some stories, the one is Ra that creates the Moon so that it illuminates the nocturnal sky, leaving it in charge of Tot. Tot was also the person in charge of regulating the calendar. He taught to the humanity the arts and sciences, and the Greeks interpreted it like the God Hermes. Into later time, the God Tot Moon became inspiration of the hermetic tradition of the Greek, Islamic and European occultism. |
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The regulating function of the Moon of the menstrual cycle (term that comes from Greek the menses , that moon means ) granted an association to him with the fertility at old times, and in agreement the matriarcados ones went away transforming into patriarcales societies, of the printing that to the Moon it is occurred a feminine paper to him increasingly, whereas the Sun adopts the masculine paper. The goddess Ch'ang-o Moon, or Heng-o, one of the most popular figures of the Chinese beliefs folkloric, illustrates the characteristic of the feminine Moon under one of its more benign aspects. Celebration of Moon, that is celebrated in the Full Moon that it follows the autumn equinox, is one of the three great annual celebrations. He is dedicated exclusively to the women and the children, and the men do not take part in her. Little figures with rabbit form are prepared, or of soldier with hare face, both lunar animals, and the children directly make their offerings to the increasing Moon. Also societies exist that celebrate the second Full Moon of a same denominated month Blue Moon
In Chinese mythology, Ch'ang-o was the wife of the arquero I, to which elixir of immortality was granted to him to have saved to the humanity when lowering to nine of the ten suns that left together threatening burning the world. A day, I returned to their house and found whereupon her wife had drunk elixir, reason why she persecuted it until the Moon. The lunar hare offered protection to the woman and forced to I to stop of its persistence. Since then one says that Ch'ang-o lives in the Moon, beauty model and modestia.
Perhaps today there are by fact the feminine symbolism of the Moon, although there are remarkable cases in that one treats like masculine, like in his corporización in Tot, in the old Egypt, that was the God of the Moon, measurer of the time, write of the Gods, gentleman of the magic and sabiduria and universal deity. Usually one imagines like a man with head of ibis, or like ibis or a mandril with dog head.
Tsuki-Yomi is a Japanese, lunar and masculine God, and in old mesopotámica mythology, Without, the God Moon, was an old one with beard, the most important deity of the tríada one Without, Shamash the God Sun and Ishtar, a representation of Venus.
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In a the mythology of brahmanic India, says that the Moon is where the cores of the deceaseds go. The notion of the Moon as kingdom of deads takes us to a greater voltage in its symbolism. Their phases can indicate an analogy with the organic cycles and the kingdom of the nature, as it happens in a the mythology of some zones of South America, where thinks that the Moon is the mother him the grass.
In the old Mesopotamia there were some who considered that the heat of the Moon, more than the one of the Sun, was the power force by means of which the plants grew. At the same time, nevertheless the phases of the Moon have meant for some towns the decay and the death. This paradox of the life and the death is included/understood in the Moon like triple goddess, a mythical reason that it appears under many aspects, mainly where we found a trinidad feminine, like in the three Sparing ones, or the three witches. |
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In the world of old Greece, the poets saw the virgin Artemisa hunting (Diana call for the Romans) as the goddess with three forms, being its other two aspects Selene, the Moon of the sky and Hécate, a mysterious goddess of the infraworld. The triple goddess can be interpreted like three phases of the lunar sky: the silver arc that takes Artemisa represents the New Moon, Selene is the mature Full Moon, and Hécate, the dark of the Moon. The own Hécate presents/displays the same triple symbolism, being described often with three bodies or three heads. It is being mistaken between the cores of deads and its arrival announces with the howl of the dogs. It lives in the tombs and the solitary places in which there is crossroads of ways, and teaches the witchcraft and encantamiento arts. Sometimes arpía imagined like a old, showing to the last moments of the cycle of the Moon, offering him to it libations at the end of every month. |
Ártem is the goddess of the huntingIn Greek mythology, Ártemis was the goddess of the harvests, the nature and the hunting. Associated to the moon, she was the protector of the childbirths of the women, and also of youth. The illustration is the panel that on her made the flamenco painter of century XVII, Petrus Paulus Rubens. |
The influence of the Moon on the Earth tides is reflected in its mitológica association with the water. For example, in brahmanic myths of India, the God Soma (name that derives from its relation with the hallucinogenic substance soma, of that it is said that it is the food of the Gods and that is contained in the mythical one to elixir of immortality) was related to Candra, the deity of the Moon, reason why it represented waters of the life. The germanic legend relates to the Moon to the water and the deceit. One of the known legend more is the one of the fox that convinces a wolf that the reflection of the Moon is a water face is a girl who takes a bath.
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Coyolxauhqui The earth and moon-goddess of the Aztecs. She is related to the four hundred star-deities Huitznauna, who is under her control. She possesses magical powers which with she can do great harm. Coyolxauhqui decapitated her own mother Coatlicue when she became pregnant in what her children deemed unseemly circumstances.
Immediately the sun-god Huitzilopochtli sprang fully armed from Coatlicue's womb and slew Coyalxauhqui and many of her kin. According to one tradition, Huitzilopochtli tossed her head into the sky where it became the moon. |
One of the most impressive pieces of the Aztec art is the Coyolxauhqui, " The one of the bells in the cheek ", lunar deity that, according to relates the myth, was beheaded and dismembered. |
The wolf submerges in the water in its attempt to catch the girl and it suffocates. Mythology worldwide offers an explanation of the phases of the Moon. In a maorí myth, the moon (masculine) rapta to the wife of the God Rona. It is told that Rona, infuriated by the kidnapping, faces the Moon and since then are fighting for always in the sky. One tells that when the moon vanishes, has gotten tired to fight and to need a rest, which does during the increasing period of the cycle; when the Full Moon reappears, the battle begins once again.
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Masm(Last update 08.29.2006)
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