Coming up on The Children's Hour, we're going to the moon. Our guests include the bad astronomer Dr. Phil Plait, who explains how the moon was formed. Then meet the commander of NASA's Artemis II mission, astronaut Reid Wiseman. He tells us about the mission and what it's like to live in space after living on the International Space Station. Dr. Chip Shearer is a planetary geologist who studies the rock and soil samples brought back from the moon. Finally, what's
the deal with blue moons? This episode has a companion learning guide at ChildrensHour.org. Look for the moon. Let's explore the moon today on The Children's Hour. The Children's Hour is produced by The Children's Hour Incorporated. We're a New Mexico based non-profit organization working with children to make the best and high quality kids public radio. You can learn a lot more about us at ChildrensHour.org. It's time forThe Children's Hour. Kids Public
Radio. What kind of money do people use on the moon? I don't know what! Starbucks. It's time for The Children's Hour, Kids Public Radio. John F. Kennedy made a speech, said he believed that we would be the first country to land upon the moon. He wandered in his room. What would I do if I were on the moon? What would I do if I were on the moon? Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins too were the
first three astronauts to land upon the moon. Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins too were the first three astronauts to land at Pahamalu. Did they jump, jump, jump, jump? Did they dance, dance, dance, dance? Collect rocks and data, rocks and data. Go camping, on the lunar module. And this certainly has to be the most disturbed telephone call ever made in the White House. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of
man's work. 1969, one giant leap for all mankind. Apollo 11, a crew of three, landed in the sea of tranquility. They stepped outside in their space suits, jumped around in their space boots.
What would you do if you were on the moon? What would you do if you were on the Jump, jump, jump Would you dance, dance, dance, dance Collect rocks and data, rocks and data Go camping on the looter module Jump, jump, jump, jump Would you dance, dance, dance, dance Collect rocks and data, rocks and data Go camping on the looter module That was Moon Landing by Turtle Dance Music from their space album. You're listening to
The Children's Hour. I'm Katie Stone. I'm here at the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, New Mexico with a whole lot of kids and on Zoom. Hello, everyone. Hi. And who do we have with us today? Hi, it's Nina. Hi, it's Lucasti. Hi, it's Caibiya. Hi, it's Jo. Hi, it's Thaniel. Hi, it's Amaya. Well, you all thank you for being here. Today on the show, we're going to touch the moon. Literally, we have moon samples here at the outpost that we get to touch.
And I assume we have a lot of moon fans on The Children's Hour. The moon's super cool, yeah. You know, without the moon, we might not even be able to have life on Earth. There are many people studying the moon in many different ways. First, we're going to hear from Dr. Phil Plait. He's known as the bad astronomer. And he's going to explain to us how the moon was formed. And then we're going to be meeting the commander of the Artemis II project. That's NASA's mission
to go back to the moon. His name is Reid Wiseman. And he's going to join us in just a few minutes. And then we're going to meet someone else who actually gets to touch the samples of soil and rocks that come back from the moon. His name is Dr. Chip Shearer. And he's going to even let us handle little pieces of the moon that he found right here on Earth. That's pretty fascinating. There's a lot more to learn on The Children's Hour. We're so glad you're with
us. This episode comes with a learning guide. You can find it at ChildrensHour.org. Look for The Moon. We're going to play some Billy Kelly and then get right with Dr. Phil Plait. You're listening to The Children's Hour. Appears both day and night The moon reflects the sun's light And so the moon appears to shine quite bright That maybe is so. But really all I really all I want to know is why the moon Why? Come and does anyone here see why the moon is following me?
the ocean tides. Moon does not have a dark side. Moon is visible worldwide. So there is no place that I can hide that may be so. Really all I really all I want to know is why. you It faster, it goes faster, coming after me while Following me Somebody needs to tell the moon What? There's no true atmosphere disappears behavior does appear quite weird, that may be so. Really all I, really all I want to know is why.
That was Billy Kelly off his Family Garden release. Welcome back to The Children's Hour. Today we're blasting off together to the moon. How did it get there to begin with? We thought we'd ask expert Dr. Phil Plait. Who has a PhD in astronomy. He's also known as the bad astronomer. He's been featured on CNN, PBS, and many other media outlets. And he writes, thinks, and teaches all about space. And he told us that for a long time, how the moon came to be was
a big mystery. Then in the 1960s and 70s, after the Apollo missions brought back samples from the moon, We started to get an idea that maybe the moon formed from a gigantic impact. The idea is a small planet the size of Mars, one third or half the size of the earth, something like that, slammed into our planet not long after it formed and that threw out a ton of debris, a ton, millions, billions, trillions of tons of debris into space and that this
stuff coalesced and formed the moon. About what time do scientists predict that this collision between the planet and our planet happened? The collision with Theia probably happened really soon after the Earth formed. Probably not more than about a hundred million years. And a hundred million years sounds like a long time to us, right? But the Earth is four and a half billion years old. It's much, much, much older than that. So we're talking about an
event that happened when the Earth was still extremely young. Well, planetary scientists come up with ideas on how the moon was formed. It's hard to know sometimes if they're right or not. So how do you test something on such a big scale or on something that happened billions of years ago? We understand a lot of physics now. And there are equations, mathematics, that we can use to apply to this physics. So for example, there's this idea that maybe one
day, billions of years ago, the Earth was spinning really, really fast, so fast. that it flung away material and that's what formed the moon. And it turns out that doesn't work. And we know it doesn't work because it's hard to get the earth spinning that fast. If it flings away material, it's hard for that material to merge together and form the moon. You would expect the moon to be made of different things than it is. And you can use sort of basic
physics to understand it and you can use observations. We have been to the moon. We have brought back rocks. We have tested these rocks in the lab. We know what they're made of. We still understand enough science to be able to test these ideas and figure out whether they're wrong or maybe right. You never know if something's exactly right. There's always a lot of other stuff influencing it. But you can at least say, isn't wrong. And that's actually important.
That's Dr. Phil Plait, the bad astronomer. You can find links to his videos and newsletter on our website, ChildrensHour.org. Look for this episode, The Moon. Ready? Well, we're going to the moon in a red balloon, in red balloon, straight up to the moon. If we're going to the moon, then we better leave soon. Do you want to come too? Say yes if you do. Then we'll drive to the stars in a brand new car In a brand new car. All the way to the
stars .We'll have to drive far. All the way to the stars In a brand new car. Yes, we're going to the stars uh you uh Then we're going to the zoo In a little canoe Just me and you In a little canoe. Paddle down to the zoo In a little canoe. Do you want to come too? Say yes if you do. Then we're going to Spain. On a big airplane. On a big airplane. Fly all the way to Spain It's a mighty long flight. Gonna take us all night Then we'll land in Spain. On a big airplane.
Anyplace you want to go. Just let me know I want to come too. Just me and you When I'm with you. Anyplace will do. Anyplace you want to go. Just let me know uh we're going to the moon uh in a red balloon straight up to the moon If we're going to the moon then we better leave soon. Do you want to come too? Say yes if you do. Do you want
to come too? Say yes if you do. Do you want to come too? Say yes if you do That was Key Wilde and Mr. Clarke with Going to the Moon from their Rise and Shine album. You're listening to The Children's Hour and today on the show we're joined by Commander Reid Wiseman. He's the commander of NASA's Artemis II and he is an astronaut. Welcome to The Children's Hour. Thank you. It is great to be here. I love seeing these smiling faces.
We're so happy you're with us and we have a lot of questions for you, but let me start at the very beginning. What is Artemis 2? Artemis 2 is going to be the first time in a little over 50 years that we have sent humans out to the moon. We are going to launch out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the Space Launch System and we will be in the Orion spacecraft.
It's all NASA spacecraft and we will spend about one day in Earth orbit and then if everything is looking really good on our spaceship, Mission Control Houston will give us a go for trans lunar injection and we will fire our thrusters and head out to the moon. 250,000 mile journey out and around the moon and then we will come back and that entire trip only takes about
nine, a little over nine days. And this is the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft and we are trying to pave the way for our coworkers to land on the moon and work in the lunar environment for the next, hopefully several decades. How did you become an astronaut? There are many different ways, especially in 2024, to become an astronaut. I personally went to college and got a degree in engineering. And then I joined the United States Navy and was a pilot
and test pilot and then came to NASA through that route. But if I look at our Astronaut Corps today, we have medical doctors, have school teachers, we have engineers, we have scientists, we have geologists, we even have a veterinarian. There are many different disciplines that we want to be astronauts because we want a slice of America, a slice of every technical field that we have in the U.S. to make a strong Astronaut Corps. What was it like when you
learned that you were going to be leading this mission? To me, it's... We say the phrase humbling a lot, but really when I learned who I was going to be flying with, I was extremely excited. I'm going with Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, who not only are they all very close friends of mine, I also know that they are the finest astronauts I've ever met. Victor was a pilot like myself. Christina was an electrical engineer. She loves to surf.
Jeremy Hansen and I got selected. at the same year we were in the same class of astronaut school. just getting a chance to fly with these three people for me is an honor. And then it's also important to note that this is the first time in 50 years that we're going back to the moon. Artemis II is a global effort and getting to be kind of the leading edge of that to make these folks who have worked on this vehicle to make their dreams come true. That is really
quite an awesome experience for us. What are you most excited about to see come from this mission? By far the thing that our crew is most excited to see come from this mission is humans working on the surface of the moon to see Americans back on the lunar surface. But to me, even more importantly, to see international partners working together with us on the lunar surface and to see this architecture really start to pave the way for humans exploring throughout
the solar system is what I most hope to see from this mission. That's so exciting. Would you want to be exploring the solar system? Well, I've spent 165 days living on the International Space Station, so I feel like I've already spent some time away from Earth and the view of the Earth. It's just magnificent. To get a chance to fly to the moon or to fly out to Mars or to me personally, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, that is the crown jewel of our
solar system beyond the Earth. and to get a chance to do that, probably not in my lifetime, but in the lifetime of your participants here, to me that would be the end all. That's Commander Reid Wiseman from the Artemis II mission to the moon. We've got more with him coming right up. This is Moxy Fruvous right here on The Children's Hour. You'll probably be heading there soon. uh. Someday flowers will grow there, but first you gotta go there. All you will go to the
moon. You will uh live in the stars. Your backyard will probably be Mars. You will ride a freighter scooter and eat off your computer. All you will live in the stars. Your stellar smile will always beam, knowing you're home and home to stay. You'll look down upon the earth Say I can't believe we ever lived that way. You will go to the moon. There's plans for a hotel and a lagoon. You'll be savoring a starfruit and kicking off your moon boot, or you will go
to the moon. You will go to the moon, a paradise to rival Cancun. At one side's always sunny, you'll be raking in the money, or you'll get paid off the moon. It's been our most abiding dream, and a dream is an easy sell. And when the tourists come in droves. You'll be the big cheese on that orbiting rondel You will go to the moon. Daring pioneers will call the tune. Someday flowers will grow there But first you gotta go there Now you will go to the moon
I'm oh gonna tell ya, you will go to the moon One more! You will go to the moon! Go to the moon Yeah! You are listening to The Children's Hour, Kids Public Radio. We'll be right back. The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs supports The Children's Hour. Celebrate the diverse cultural communities of New Mexico at nmculture.org. Keep up with The Children's Hour and sign up for our monthly newsletter at childrenshour.org. I like all of the podcasts because they help me learn
a lot. I'm Brooklyn Elder from Albuquerque. Find hundreds of educational podcasts at ChildrensHour.org or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Look for The Children's Hour. the moon. Sometimes it feels like time is standing still. oh I feel the hunger to dance On an ordinary day I'm an ordinary person But when the moon is full I'm a dancing wolf in motion Till the moment coming soon When I uh you True Under the moon and stars Two by two, face to face The road
When I'm dancing with the wolves. There is beauty and perfection. The media luna moves us in all the right directions. Professor Lira is our cue To howl to the moon When the petals fall, it's time to come back together and dance again to our tune. That's Lucy Kalantari and the Jazz Cats from the Grammy-winning All the Sounds album with Howl to the Moon. You're listening to The Children's Hour. Today's show is about the moon. We have
a learning guide that goes with this episode. You can find it at childrenshour.org. Look for the moon. Today we have many guests on the show. Right now we're talking with Commander Reid Wiseman. He's the commander of NASA's Artemis II mission to go back to the moon. What's your day in the life like in space? Oh, Jo, in space on the International Space Station, Christina spent almost a year up there, 328 days, and Victor Glover spent about the same
amount of time I did, 165 days. And our day is, it's not... unlike your day here on Earth. So we wake up, I'm gonna say it's not unlike your day. And then I'm gonna tell you that we wake up at about six o'clock in the morning. But maybe for school, you do wake up that early. And we usually have a meeting with our ground control teams so that we know what we're gonna do for that day. And then we have breakfast. And then after that, we start our
workday. And we generally focus on three things on the International Space Station. We have to keep that magnificent space station flying. So there's a lot of maintenance that we do. And then the primary reason we are up there is to conduct science for researchers on the ground. So about a third of our day is spent conducting science for the researchers. And then a third of our day is spent working on our own bodies. When we are living off of the
planet, we don't have the effects of gravity working on our body. Our bodies will get very weak very quickly if we're not exercising significant amounts of time in the day. So working on our body and our body is also a scientific experiment when we're on the space station. So doing ultrasound of our bones, our muscles, our eyes, taking blood and analyzing what's going on with our heart, our lungs, our microbiome, gut bacteria, all of that is very important for what we do.
So a third of our day working on the space station, a third of our day conducting science, and a third of our day taking care of our own bodies. Obviously being able to travel beyond low earth orbit and conduct a flyby around the moon holds a lot of historical weight in the analogs of space exploration. It carries a significant amount of pressure. So how has this affected how you feel about your upcoming mission? People talk a lot to us about the pressure of this
mission. And I think as professional astronauts, I don't want to say we neglect that pressure, but we don't really think about it. We have a mission to accomplish. We have an amazing training team that is getting us ready for that mission. And we have a tremendous amount of trust in NASA and in our companies that are building these spacecraft. So when it comes down to it, I think by the time we get on that rocket, we'll be ready. We'll be a little nervous for
sure. That's a lot of energy, but I think we have a lot of trust in our teams and it's really been fun. I wish you could see the crew together on a given day because we really rely on each other. Not everybody's having a great day every day, but we really help each other pull ourselves into the focus of the mission. And I lean on Victor and Christina and Jeremy almost every day. And they're just really great people to get to work with. That's NASA's Artemis II
mission commander, Reid Wiseman. Would you want to go explore space and be an astronaut like Commander Wiseman? We'd love to know. You can visit ChildrensHour.org and leave us a message on our speak pipe under our contact page. This episode is called The Moon and we have a learning guide posted that goes along with it. Find it at childrenshour.org. Look for The Moon. We've got more with Commander Wiseman and we're going to learn about what
happens to the samples that are collected on the moon when they come back to Earth. You're listening to The Children's Hour. This is Our Native Daughters. The shackles on our feet, but we're dancing still a very tough Raise your voice and sing, sing our songs, sing our freedom. Hold us steady and keep us free. oh I can't stop us and we're dancing. Ah, you steal our children but we're dancing. just hate our very skin, but with that yourselves. You can't us in with dancing
day is done, the moon meets the sun with the dancing. oh day is done, the moon meets the sun, we'll be dancing. Spider, the smallest will still prevail. The stories of our... You can't stop the Ruby dancing. You can't keep us dancing. You can't stop the Ruby dancing. You can't keep us dancing. can't stop the Ruby dancing. You can't keep us dancing. can't stop the Ruby dancing. Can't can't stand, can't stand, can't stand, stand, you
Our Native Daughters there with Moon Meets the Sun from Songs of Our Native Daughters. You're listening to The Children's Hour. I'm Katie Stone. And today on the show, we're learning about the moon. And right now our guest is commander Reed Weissman. He is the commander of the NASA Artemis II mission to go back to the moon. And the kids have a lot of questions about being an astronaut. Let's go over to Thorfin. What was it like living 24/7 with no gravity?
Probably the thing that I could most relate because of the last sentence you said 24/7 without gravity, you know, at the end of a day at school where you've had a long day, a lot of work and you sit down on the couch and you just feel that feeling of relief when you're in a microgravity or a weightless environment for half a year, you never ever get to sit down. You never get that feeling at the end of a day where you just sit down
and let everything just go. because you're floating the entire time. The other thing that I like to explain is that things on Earth that are very hard are usually very easy in space. And things on Earth that are very easy are usually very hard in space. So if you want to move a refrigerator on Earth, that is very hard. But on the International Space Station, you could just use your finger and move that entire refrigerator because it has mass, but
it doesn't have weight. So you can get it going and you can move it anywhere you want. But then on the flip side, if you open a bag of trail mix in space, it is nearly impossible to eat a bag of trail mix because you have little peanut bits and M&M bits and sunflower seeds and they're going everywhere. And like that simple thing on earth where you just tilt that trail mix bag back and eat it. It's nearly impossible to do that when you don't
have gravity. I've always said, I would love to see a 10 year old on the international space station because your brain would adapt so quickly and you would figure out new ways to accomplish your mission so fast. But it is wild to be up there. Even when I was 39 years old on the space station to see how much my body improved every day to that microgravity environment. I have to ask a question, follow up on this. When you eat in space, then you
have to actually like, place the food in your mouth one bite at a time. And then when you swallow, what makes it go down to your stomach? I guess I always assumed that was gravity. Human body is an amazing machine. So it is weird. The first week that you're in space, you have to force yourself to eat and force yourself to drink because your body really doesn't want to do that. But after a few days in space, your body just starts to sort out
when it's hungry and when it needs to go to the bathroom. And it all does work out. I always found not to go too deep into the gross sections of the human body, but I always found that when I had to pee, it would just come on out of nowhere. And I almost thought it was like, because the urine is all around your bladder instead of settling at the bottom. And you know, when we're on earth, your bladder fills up and fills up and fills up. And then your
brain goes, oh, I have to go to the bathroom. But in space, that fluid is all around your bladder. It doesn't fill up from the bottom to the top because there's no gravity to do that. And so all of a sudden out of nowhere, I have to pee right now and you don't got to pee a lot. And then a few hours later will go by and you're like, Oh, I don't know if I got to pee or not. And you'll pee a tremendous amount. And so that stuff for me personally, never
really, my body never really figured it out. So what happens if you fart while you're in space or in the space station? So you do actually, and you do significantly more than on earth because there isn't gravity like sorting out everything in your GI tract. And so you pass gas all the time. It's just a part of life up there all day long. You almost giggle at how much you have to pass gas just little bits throughout the day. But it's just, if you just
step back and realize that that's your body working in microgravity, it's okay. And you start to realize foods that make it worse and foods that make it better. So like for some of my crew mates eating dried prunes, that was a very bad decision. And so you just start to eliminate those things from your diet when you're up there and figure out what makes it an acceptable environment for you and for your crew mates because that's very, very important.
I bet that's important. Let's go over to Amaya. When you land on the moon and you step out of the capsule, how do you feel? So the only thing I can equate that to is is on the International Space Station. We launch and about six hours later, give or take, we're we're docked to the International Space Station and you come through the hatch. And you see this magnificent machine that we have in low Earth orbit. And the feeling that I personally had was total
confusion. You're so used to training to do your job on Earth where you have gravity. And now when you have the absence of gravity and you're trying to do your job in a truly three-dimensional environment, like the wall behind me can be the floor or it can be the ceiling. And the floor in my office, definitely is not the floor on the space station. And so you have to work for a long time to get your brain used to using all surfaces of the
space station and anything can be a floor and anything can be a ceiling. It's very, at first it's very difficult to get your brain used to those sorts of things. Like imagine being an artist and you can literally look from any dimension at your art and it feels the same to your head. You have to free yourself of thinking like you're on planet Earth. That's Commander Reid Wiseman from NASA's Artemis II mission. Four astronauts will take a trip around the
moon. We have a lot more information at ChildrensHour.org. Look for this episode, The Moon, and there you're going to find a learning guide that meets and cites educational standards. We've got more with Commander Wiseman, and we'll be talking with Dr. Chip Shearer. He is a planetary geologist. he studies the samples that are brought back from the moon to planet Earth. In the background, you're hearing Claudia Robin Gunn. This is Greg Brown. I see the moon and the moon sees
me and the moon sees the one that I long to see. So God bless the moon and God bless me and God bless the one that I long to see. It seems to me that God above created you for me to love. He picked you out of all the rest because He knew I loved you best. I once had a heart called mine, you see, but now it's gone to you from me. So take good care as I have done, for you have too and I have none. I see the moon and the moon
sees me, and the moon sees the one that I long to see. So God bless the moon and God bless me, and God bless the one that I long to see. You're listening to The Children's Hour Kids Public Radio. We'll be right back. The Children's Hour is now producing weekly educational modules to go with every episode, thanks to a grant from the Albuquerque Community Foundation. You can support this effort too. Go to childrenshour.org and click Donate. Many
thanks to the Outpost Performance Space for hosting The Children's Hour. Support for The Children's Hour provided by New Mexico Arts, a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and by the National Endowment for the Arts, support for The Children's Hour provided by the City of Albuquerque Cultural Services Department and the Urban Enhancement
Trust Fund. You're listening to The Children's Hour and over the break we heard Susie Tallman from Classical Baby playing Claire de Lune. Today on the show we're learning about our moon. Our episode has a learning guide that comes with it. You can find it at childrenshour.org. look for the moon. And we've been talking with an astronaut who's about to go around
the moon and what it's like to be in space. But now our guest is Dr. Chip Shearer. He's from the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico, and he's a researcher and professor and a planetary geologist. Excited to be here. Would there be life on Earth without a moon? And if so, what would it be like? I really don't know what it would be like at all. If you don't have a tide that's caused by the moon, how does that impact the evolution of life on earth?
You know, if you look up at the moon and you see all those large craters on the moon, if you look at the moon and you think it looks like the man in the moon, the eyes and the nose and the mouth, those are all large, large craters resulting from the impact. of other planetary bodies into the moon. And that happened perhaps on the order of 3.9 billion years ago when life was just starting to evolve on earth. The moon kind of is a recorder of what
happened to the earth 4 billion years ago. You're so certain about these dates. How do you know? We have rocks from the moon and we can take these rocks That were returned from the Apollo missions from the Luna missions. We can take them and bring them into laboratories and we date them using a bunch of different radio isotopes that we essentially know how they decay and the time at which over which they decay and utilizing that we can essentially
date the rocks. The important thing is being able to place it within some sort of geological context. You if you just take a rock, you probably can date it very well, but you don't have a context to place that rock dating an event of some sort? And that's what we're trying to get back to. Not only the age, but what does that age mean? Why is the moon a gray white color and what is it primarily made out of? Well, it's actually several colors. One is
kind of a darker black color. Those are called maury. And those are from the eruption of basalts and flooding these impact basins. And if we can have somebody give us a hand, let's pass around the basalt. This isn't from the moon, nor is it a burn souffle. My wife was working in Hawaii. She's a geologist also. And she was standing in front of a lava flow coming out of the Hawaiian volcanoes and scooping them with a shovel for part of a study she
was carrying out. You're showing us this because this is what the dark part of the moon is made of. A burnt sort of, well, uh basalt, like burnt carbon. We have basalt here in New Mexico. They're all over the world. Some of them are fairly recent. Like in Hawaii, where you're still having eruptions of lava now, all the way up through Canada, most places on the earth have basalts of some sort. I heard that you can find moon rocks on earth. If that's true,
how do you know they're moon rocks? Well, you know, actually what I have here is I have two moon rocks I'm going to hand out to the group. We are actually touching. pieces of rock from the moon. When they have these sharp edges, it looks like it kind of hurt, but even with the sharp edges, it's still got like, it's a soft feeling. It's like smooth. It doesn't hurt you to touch it. It actually has the look of the surface of the moon. It's got all of
these craters just like the moon, but it's small. It's like the size of a human fist and it's very heavy. and there's holes all through it. And then there's this other one. That one is, remember I told you the large impacts on the moon are filled with basalts and that's the darker color. The parts of the moon that aren't filled with the basalts are the lunar highlands. And those are kind of the grayer parts of the moon. And that's what you saw in that little
case. That's a part of the lunar highlands. And those are usually older than the basalts themselves. the moon has a lot of solid rocks like basalt, but it also has a lot of really fine dust. Where did all of that come from? It's a product of impacts on the lunar surface of various sizes. Some of these impacts can be hundreds of miles across. That essentially forms debris from those impacts. And so when you look at lunar rocks, lunar soils, you can
determine what its ages are by its maturity. But what I've got for you guys is a lunar soil sample. Wow. It's just a teeny tiny little vial. Yeah. And it looks like it's filled with just a little itty bitty of almost like sand. When I looked inside of the jar, what were some of the specks of sand white and why were some of the specks of sand black? They're made of different minerals. What you saw in terms of the light minerals, that's a mineral called
feldspar. So what you're seeing are differences in mineralogy of the soil sample. The darker rocks can be a mineral called pyroxene, or they could be impact glass, or there is in that particular sample, small little tiny glass beads that are from these ancient volcanic eruptions on the lunar surface. And this sample was actually returned to Earth by a New Mexican,
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt. That's Dr. Chip Shearer. He's from the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico, and he's a researcher and professor and a planetary geologist. He actually studies the rocks that come back from the moon. The samples he has today are from Apollo 17. You're listening to The Children's Hour and this is Danny Weinkauf. On July 16th, 1969, a rocket was sent into space. The astronauts and the cosmonauts were
having a bit of a race. They said they were gonna land a man on the moon, and you can believe what you please. But I don't care what the scientists say, the moon is made of cheese. The name of the ship was Apollo 11 It was named for an old Greek god. One fella named Buzz and another named Neil. Were the ones they chose for the job. They said their plan was to go for a walk And maybe fly a little flag in the breeze. But I don't care what the scientists
say. The moon is made of cheese. No, I don't care what the scientists say. The moon is made of cheese. Cause my mama always told me you can't believe everything that you see The moon's no place for walking It's got holes just like swiss cheese I don't believe in no UFOs or little green men from space. So when they talk about walks on the moon it puts a smile on my face. Now when I'm watching those history shows it all seems so funny to me. Cause I
don't care what the scientists say, the moon is made of cheese. No, I don't care what the scientists say, the moon is made of cheese. It's made of cheese, it's made of cheese, the moon is made of cheese. This is The Children's Hour and I'm Katie Stone. We know the moon is not made out of cheese, but that's what some people think. Some people also think that the moon is blue sometimes. We wanted to learn more about blue moons. And long ago, our dear friend Crawford McCallum
told us why we have blue moons. Way back in 1937, a magazine called the Farmers Almanac named the 12 full moons of the year. Starting with the winter solstice in December, the first three are called Moon after Yule, Wolf Moon, and Lenten Moon. Then after spring equinox in March, we have Egg Moon, Milk Moon, and Flower Moon. Between summer solstice and fall
equinox in September, we have Hay Moon, Grain Moon, and Fruit Moon. And finally, between fall equinox and winter solstice, comes Harvest Moon, Hunter's moon and moon before you. Three full moons in each of four seasons. Three times four makes 12. Neat. Oh, but there's a problem. 12 moon months don't quite make a whole year. The moon goes around the earth a little bit more than 12 times while the earth goes around the sun exactly once. So every
few years, like once in the blue moon, we get 13 full moons in a year. and there's no telling which season that extra full moon is going to come in. So we can't give it a nice descriptive name like the others. Old monks who had to figure out the church calendar decided to just call it a blue moon. So a blue moon is the extra one when we happen to get four
full moons in one of the seasons instead of three. Unfortunately, somebody read this story in the farmer's almanac back in 1937 and got mixed up and said, A blue moon was when you get two full moons in the same month. And that was so much easier to understand than the real story that now most people think that's what a blue moon is. So you can just take your choice. see it right there! Off you go! Tonight we look for the moon. First in mommy and daddy's room It's dark so hold my hand
I pick you up, now you wanna stand Is the moon out there tonight? We're looking for the Should we look for the boot in the next minute? Is there a on the farm? Yep, there's one! I see one stuck together. Should we dance for a minute? And you found another star. They always shine right where you are. Then we'll walk on down the hall Is the moon out tonight at all? Is the moon out there tonight? We're looking for the moon of our minds I jumped up high.
Next come all the other rules there's yours and have we found the moon. It's not sleepy time yet. Who like to bubble folks? You're blowing bubbles? Mommy, should you catch one? Yeah, sure. There's a bubble. Should we send it to the moon? Mr. Moon Cup and Bubble! Yay! And now it's sleepy time. We all sleep with the moon until the next time. Is the moon out there tonight? That's the Re-Bops right here on The Children's Hour. The moon, Earth's faithful companion,
is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits at an average distance of about 238,855 miles. Its surface is adorned with vast lunar seas called maria that were formed by ancient volcanic activity. Contrary to popular belief, the moon isn't completely devoid of an atmosphere. In fact, it has a thin exosphere. It's composed primarily of helium, neon, and hydrogen. One of the most striking features visible from Earth is the moon's phases, which are caused
by its orbit around our planet and its interaction with sunlight. Additionally, the moon's gravity affects Earth's tides, exerting a powerful influence on our planet's oceans. These captivating lunar phenomena continue to inspire scientists and stargazers alike. They fuel our curiosity about all of the celestial wonders above our heads. We have a lot more moon facts and information about the moon at ChildrensHour.org. Look for this episode, The Moon, where you can find
a learning guide. We're going to go out with one more. This is Ralph's World. We'll catch you next time for another edition of The Children's Hour. In other words, baby kiss me Fill my heart with song, let me sing forever Shit. true In other words Another me fly me to the I wanna know what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars Please be true
The Children's Hour is produced by The Children's Hour Incorporated, a New Mexico nonprofit. You can find photos, playlists, learning guides, and activities for every episode at ChildrensHour.org. Today's episode of The Children's Hour was written and produced by me, Katie Stone, with production help from Christina Stella, Sarah Gabrielli, Thaniel Lentz, and McKenzie Graunke. Chad Sheer recorded us at Outpost. Our learning guides are written by Amber Shiel. You can
find this one at ChildrensHour.org. Look for the moon. Find our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Or go to our patreon.com/TheChildrensHour. Or ask your smart speaker to play The Children's Hour podcast. Our theme music was written by C.K. Barlow. The Children's Hour is distributed by Native Voice One, the Native American radio network. Thanks for listening to The Children's Hour, Kids Public Radio. © 2026 The Children’s Hour Inc. All Rights Reserved.