Mythological history of the moon
The moon in Roman mythology is the goddess of night light. In the Egyptian mythology the goddess of the moon - Tefnut and her sister Shu - one of the embodiments of the solar beginning, were twins. In the Indo-European and Baltic mythology the motive of the courtship of month for the sun and their weddings are widely extended: after wedding the month leaves the sun for what to it the god-Thunderer avenges and cuts off the month in half. In Armenian mythology, Lusin ("moon"), a young boy, asked his mother holding a dough for a bun.
The angry mother slapped Lusin, from whom he took off to heaven. He still has dough marks on his face. According to popular belief, the phases of the moon are associated with the cycles of life of King Lusin: the new moon - with his youth, the full moon - with maturity, when the moon diminishes and appears crescent, comes the old age of Lusin, which then goes to heaven (dies). From heaven, he returns reborn.
Myths about the origin of the moon from body parts (most often from the left and right eyes) are also known. Most peoples of the world have special lunar myths explaining the appearance of spots on the moon, most often because there is a special person ("lunar man" or "lunar woman"). Many peoples attach special importance to the moon deity, believing that it provides the necessary elements for all living things.
The relief of the moon
Traditionally, there are two main types of landscapes on the Moon - the mainland and the sea. The predominant form of the lunar surface relief is the lunar seas, which are huge dark-colored depressions. Of course, there is no water in these seas, but this is how these depressions were named in the distant past for their dark coloration; these names have been preserved to this day. Smaller dark spots, similar to the seas, were named after bays, lakes, and marshes.
The main seas are concentrated within the visible hemisphere. The largest marine formation is the Ocean Storm. It is adjoined by the Sea of Rains from the north-east, the Sea of Humidity and the Sea of Clouds from the south. In the eastern half of the discs visible from the ground, they stretched along a chain from the northwest to the southeast of the Yasnost Sea, the Seas of Calm and the Seas of Izobilia. This chain is adjoined by the Sea of Nectar to the south and the Sea of Crises to the north-east.
Relatively small marine areas are located on the border of the visible and reverse hemispheres.
These are the East Sea, the Krai Sea, the Smith Sea, and the South Sea. On the other side, there is only one significant formation of the sea type - the Sea of Moscow. In most cases, irregularly shaped seas are adjacent to circular seas. The largest circular sea, the Sea of Rains, has preserved only one of the outer rings in the form of mountain ranges of the Alps, the Caucasus, the Apennines, and the Carpathians.
In addition to the seas, there are circular mountains scattered over vast areas, which have a circular shape in the central parts of the visible lunar disk and an elliptical one at the edge of the disk. The ring mountains are large and small circular formations, unevenly deepened, surrounded by ramparts rising above the surrounding area by 0.5-1.5 km. The ring mountains with a diameter of more than 35 km were called lunar circuses, and the other smaller ones were called lunar craters. Small craters are located on the entire surface of the Moon: on its plains, on the bottom of the seas, on mountain ranges and other formations.
Inside the circuses and craters, both on their bottoms and on the slopes, there are so-called parasitic craters of later origin compared to the seas and the main system of ring mountains. For example, there is a large parasitic crater on the Febit Crater, on the Cirque du Catarina, Kirill and several craters on the Circus Fracastor. Often the conical shape of the mountain rises from the depth of the crater in the center. It often has not one peak, but two or more.
One can find mountain valleys representing narrow long straight stripes stretching for tens of kilometers. Thus, the valley in the mountain range of the Alps is 120 km long and 10-15 km wide.
Typical formations are the lunar mountains, the height of which reaches 9 km, and mountain ranges, similar to the terrestrial and received by analogy the names of the terrestrial mountain ranges of the Caucasus, the Alps, the Apennines.
Systems of various cracks and rays from crater bases, furrows, and light rays are widespread. The total number of radiant craters visible on the full moon is about 300 on the visible side of the Moon.
Sea and mainland landscapes are located at different altitudes levels. On the scale of the whole lunar globe, the difference between the average levels of continents and seas reaches 2.3 km. Within the visible hemisphere, this value is 1.4 km. The average level of circular seas is 1.3 km below the average level of irregularly shaped seas and almost 4 km below the level of continents.