during the full moon in space can be clearly seen without auxiliary devices on the surface of the moon is a lot of different spots that resemble the image of a few people, and others - bunny.These stains began to call the seas of the moon in the early XVII century.Astronomers of the time assumed that the Earth's satellite is water, and therefore the sea oceans.
D. Riccioli - Italian astronomer gave names to these seas and oceans, which are used in our days.These names reflect the influence of the moon on the climatic changes on the Earth's surface.It turned out that all these judgments are radically wrong.It is worth noting, "Sea of Crises", whose name meant the weather changes, rather than the economic decline of the state.As for the light areas on the disk of the moon, it was assumed that there is land.
Astronomer Robert Boskovic in the middle of the XVIII century, the theory proved no atmosphere on the moon.When the satellite covers the star, it disappears almost immediately, but if it was the atmosphere, the star would gradually disappear.Thus, it was proved that the moon can not be any water because in the absence of atmospheric pressure it would simply evaporate over time.
Galileo established the fact that the moon is covered with mountains, among which is clearly could see the whole mountain ranges.Astronomers have decided to give them a name similar to the earth (the Carpathians, the Alps, and so on. D.).However, on the surface of Earth's satellite had seen special mountains, having an annular shape - craters, which translated from Greek means "cup".
D. Riccioli put forward a proposal calling these craters the names of famous scientists, is interested in astronomy.So there was a crater Plato, Ptolemy, Galileo, Riccioli and many others.Along with the names of great men as there are some that will not even «Google»: Theophilus, Autolycus, although these people were pretty well known by astronomers at the time.After the death of Riccioli craters continued to give names Delandr, Piazzi, and even Darwin (not to be confused with Charles Darwin).
When the Soviet Union began to seriously engage in the study of the Moon, it was decided to build interplanetary probes through which managed to capture the reverse side of the moon.Thus, the Earth's satellite maps appeared the names of Soviet astronomers, astronauts and other scientists: Gagarin, Mendeleev, Chebyshev, Lomonosov, numbered and many others.
