Hallo, enlightened viewers and welcome to Science and Spirituality. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first steps on the Moon which were taken on July 20, 1969 by American astronaut Neil Armstrong. Humankind has celebrated the Moon throughout history. The Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival is a colorful tradition observed in many Asian countries.

This popular festival takes place on the 15th of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. This year，the festival occurs on October 3. At night， when the brightest and fullest moon of the year showers its glorious light upon the Earth， family members and friends gather to admire the moon， enjoy moon cakes， and attend various performances.

On today’s episode, we will explore both scientific aspects of the Moon and humankind’s historical relationship with this heavenly body. Joining us will be Ivan Semeniuk, a science Journalist-in-Residence at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, Canada and Dr. Alan Binder, a renowned lunar and planetary scientist with over 40 years of experience working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space programs.

He is the founder and director of the Lunar Research Institute and was the principal investigator for the Lunar Prospector Mission which mapped the Moon using a small, unmanned spacecraft from a low, polar orbit.

We still have many questions about how the Moon formed. But at the moment the current thinking is that a very large object, perhaps as large as Mars collided with Earth very early in its history, just as Earth itself was forming; a collision with another proto-planet occurred. That collision was so vast that it liquefied the planet’s surface, splattered lots and lots of material out into space. Some of it was lost forever, but enough to form this large object orbiting around the Earth and that’s where we think the Moon came from.

The Earth is evolving all the time, the continents are still growing and moving around and so on and so forth. The Moon being a smaller body had less internal energy in the beginning; it was very active the first half a billion years.

Have you ever wondered about the other or “far side” of the Moon and what it looks like? Why is it that we are not able to view it from Earth?

If you imagine this as the Earth and this is the Moon, so with the face facing the Earth. If the Moon didn’t spin at all then by the time it got around to the other side, the face will be facing the other way. So in order to have the situation we have, the Moon actually does have to spin on its axis, very slowly and that spin has to be exactly in tune with its orbit, so as its spinning it is also orbiting and the same face keeps facing us.

Now that’s not a coincidence. It would seem an incredible coincidence that the Moon’s rotation would be exactly timed to its orbit. There is a gravitational connection between Earth and Moon that keeps it this way, and in fact it would take more energy for the Moon to spin faster or slower.

The interaction between the Moon and the Earth is very subtle.

The Moon is in locked rotation and that’s simply because the Moon raises tides on the water; it also raises tides on Earth. You don’t know it but you and I go up and down about a meter twice a day because of Earth tides. The gravity of the Moon makes the Earth deform too. And so the Moon is slightly egg-shaped because of the tidal effects of Earth.

That slows down the rotation of the Moon and it didn’t take very long, a few thousand years when the Moon was formed, and it was locked. Now the Earth is continuingly slowing down. The day is getting longer because of the lunar tides. And so every once in a while they say there’s a leap second.

Because the Earth is slowing down. Back when, multi-cellular life got going nearly six hundred million years ago, the day was about 20 hours and even before that it was even much shorter.

There are many dark regions that are visible on the Moon’s surface, and from ancient times these mysterious places fueled the human imagination as to what secrets they held.

When you look up at the Moon you see the dark areas, those are lava planes that have filled deep impacts.

They’re called “maria.” “Maria” means “sea” in Latin, so in the old days people thought it might be the oceans or seas. Later on, with the telescope it was obvious that they weren’t oceans, but some kind of low-lying plains that were smoother, and the other areas were rougher and brighter.

There was a lot of curiosity about what would be seen on the far side. It wasn’t until Lunar 3, a Soviet (Union) spacecraft, did an orbit around the back of the Moon and started sending those pictures back that we had the first glimpse of the Moon’s far side, and it was a surprise. It’s not exactly like the near side. It doesn’t have all those big “maria”.

There are many stories and legends regarding the Moon. In some cultural traditions, the Moon is known as our mother. In recent decades, scientists have gradually realized the extent of the influence of the Moon upon life on Earth. When we return, we will feature more from our interviews with Ivan Semeniuk and Dr. Alan Binder regarding the Moon. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

People have the misconception that (as) we went to the Moon we (therefore) must know all about it. But the Moon surface area is equal to North and South America combined and so there is a lot of exploring to do.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality. In commemoration of this year being the 40th anniversary of humankind’s first visit to the Moon and the upcoming observance of the Moon Festival on October 3, today we are exploring both the scientific aspects of, and humankind’s historical relationship with this heavenly body.

The American Indians didn't talk about the year; they talked about “many Moons ago.” “Month” the word is a derivation of the Moon. Clearly our biological cycles, the female cycle is based on the month and the reason is very simple. It goes back to the tides and the fact that, since multi-cellular life got going the number of days in a month has been almost always about 30. Now, the day has gotten a little bit longer and the month has gotten a little bit longer, but the days per month has been about the same.

The earliest calendars that we’re aware of, some of them which could go back to the Stone Age seem to be calendars that keep track of the Moon’s phases, and we know that every culture in the world at every time has had some way of keeping track of the Moon. So clearly the Moon is very important. And many religions base their calendars more on the Moon than on the sun. The Chinese calendar is based on the Moon.

The Moon has been called the mother of life on Earth. Scientists say the heavenly body played a critical role in the emergence and development of life on our planet.

The obvious way in which the Moon affects the Earth is through the tides, because of the Moon’s gravity. It causes the oceans to rise and fall, and that actually creates some remarkably suitable environments for certain kinds of life on Earth, all the life that lives in the tidal boundaries between land and ocean.

And of course these are crucial areas in the history of life on Earth because this is where animals first, emerged from the sea and came to colonize land, and it could be that it’s in the tidal regions where life first began, although it’s not quite clear how life began on Earth. So it’s hard to imagine what the story of life on Earth would be without the Moon simply because of the tides. Probably there would be some kind of life on Earth but it might be very different.

When primitive life in the Cambrian began, to evolve and get more complex and form trilobites and all that, every rhythm of the sea, the tides was this monthly cycle. And so as you know, all the sea animals, are tuned to the tides. Life began to leave the oceans and go on to dry land.

Scientists have also found that the Moon plays a vital role in maintaining the stability of Earth’s climate.

There is another more subtle way in which the Moon affects Earth. It helps stabilize the tilt of Earth’s axis. Earth’s axis is tipped a little bit towards the Sun and Earth’s orbit around the Sun gives us our seasons, winter and summer, and back and forth each year. The tilt of the Earth axis is quite stable and the Moon helps keep it that way. The Moon’s position makes it harder for the Earth's axis to kind of tip all over the place and change over time.

If the Moon were not there, it’s been speculated that the Earth's climate would be much more volatile because there would be times when the North Pole would be pointing almost down where the equator is and there are other times where it would be quite different. So the climate on Earth over billions of years would’ve potentially been more extreme without the Moon and maybe it would not have been easy for life, maybe it would’ve been impossible for life.

Even today, scientists’ knowledge of many aspects of the Moon is by no means complete. There is still so much about this heavenly body waiting to be discovered.

The Moon is a big place, and it has a complex history, not as complex as Earth, of course, but nevertheless it's a very complex history. And so it will take decades, if not centuries, to unravel everything about the Moon. As you know geologists have been running around Earth for 200, 300 years and we're still at it. So there’s a lot of work to be done.

For more about Ivan Semeniuk or Dr. Alan Binder please visit www.di.utoronto.ca or Lunar-Research-Institute.org respectively.

Thank you for your company today on this episode of Science and Spirituality. Please join us next week, for Part 2 of our program where we will continue our discussion of the Moon with Dr. Alan Binder and Ivan Semeniuk. Up next is Words of Wisdom, following Noteworthy News. May we all find everlasting inner peace and tranquility.

On Moon Festival night, five mischievous children are off on a secret quest. Head down, look below, to find where the Moon Fairy has gone.

But they encounter more adventure than expected! The kids do not know they have made trouble. They need discipline to learn a lesson, please help with this.

Watch “The Quest for the Moon Fairy – A Cantonese Opera” this Tuesday, September 29, on Enlightening Entertainment.