octatriacontagon

• In geometry, the rhombicosidodecahedron, is an Archimedean solid, one of thirteen convex isogonal nonprismatic solids constructed of two or more types of regular polygon faces.
• It has 20 regular triangular faces, 30 square faces, 12 regular pentagonal faces, 60 vertices, and 120 edges.

Oblate spheroid

It uses its gravity to snag bits of space stuff. A planet’s gravity pulls equally from all sides. Gravity pulls from the center to the edges like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. This makes the overall shape of a planet a sphere, which is a three-dimensional circle.

oblate spheroid

Earth’s moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-sized object smacked into the infant Earth and shot hot rocky material out into space. That should mean normal rules apply, but instead, the moon has a weird bulge on both the near and far side, giving it a shape like a lemon.

When the moon first formed, it orbited our planet much more closely, causing bizarre effects like extremely quick rotation and a weird shape. About 4.5 billion years ago, a cataclysmic impact created the moon out of rubble from a barely formed Earth.

The giant-impact model suggests that at some point in Earth’s very early history, these two bodies collided. During this massive collision, nearly all of Earth and Theia melted and reformed as one body, with a small part of the new mass spinning off to become the Moon as we know it.

A body as massive as a planet or large moon has sufficient gravity to pull its solid rock, liquid oceans, and gaseous atmosphere into the shape of a sphere. Smaller bodies like asteroids lack the mass—and thus the gravity—to pull their rocky surfaces into a spherical shape.

How many phases of the Moon are there?

• new Moon.
• waxing crescent Moon.
• first quarter Moon.
• waxing gibbous Moon.
• full Moon.
• waning gibbous Moon.
• last quarter Moon.
• waning crescent Moon.

The lunar surface and interior, however, are virtually devoid of oxygen, so pristine metallic iron is prevalent on the Moon and highly oxidized iron has not been confirmed in samples returned from the Apollo missions. In addition, hydrogen in solar wind blasts the lunar surface, which acts in opposition to oxidation.

Uncovering details about the lunar core is critical for developing accurate models of the moon’s formation. The team’s findings suggest the moon possesses a solid, iron-rich inner core with a radius of nearly 150 miles and a fluid, primarily liquid-iron outer core with a radius of roughly 205 miles.