The geology of the Moon

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Abstract
With traditional astronomical methods in the background, geological exploration of the Moon has developed rapidly, but logically, since the dawn of the space age. Geological maps were prepared, fist, from Earth-based photographs of the Moon. They were improved when close-up pictures of the Moon were taken from spacecraft. Artificial satellites of the Moon were used as platforms on which to base remote sensing instruments, transmitting physical and geological data to Earth, and space vehicles were sent to selected points on the lunar surface to assist with the preparations for manned landings and to improve our knowledge of details. These expensive preparations themselves generated a wealth of new knowledge, but this became seemingly inexhaustible when men roamed the Moon and returned over 280 kg of Moon rocks to Earth, leaving behind geophysical experiments which continued to function. As a result of these tremendous strides forward, we have been forced to revise our views of a cold, rigid Moon built predominantly from stony meteorites. The interior of the Moon is hot; the distant past has seen not only major impacts but also extensive volcanism altering the lunar surface, and major motions within the Moon. Even today, weak moonquakes remain to remind us of the past upheavals that accompanied the geological processes now being untravelled through detailed studies of the lunar rocks.

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