What's The Moon Really Made Out Of?

[Bartmanhomer]

I know for a fact that the moon isn't made out of cheese? But seriously what does the moon really made out of anyway?

[sktarq]

Lunar surface chemical composition[50]
Composition
Maria Highlands
silica SiO2 45.4% 45.5%
alumina Al2O3 14.9% 24.0%
lime CaO 11.8% 15.9%
iron(II) oxide FeO 14.1% 5.9%
magnesia MgO 9.2% 7.5%
titanium dioxide TiO2 3.9% 0.6%
sodium oxide Na2O 0.6% 0.6%

- according to Wikipedia

basic rock type is a regolith based on Anorthosite like rock and the breakdown thereof

but basically the same stuff earth is....VERY much the same stuff isotopic balances (which change as you radiate from the sun and which patch of dust turns into a given stellar body) between the earth and moon appear to be basically identical.
Which means either the great impact hypothesis is wrong or that the impact was enough to basically vaporize both into an unbalanced toroid system that collapsed into two units (at least according to the popular mechanics level science I have seen floating around the internet the last couple years)

There are decent signs from other missions of more that the usual amount of iron, yttrium, titanium, and possibly uranium on the surface level. Questions of if they are native or meteoric is a bit questionable and may well vary and honestly I how no idea how much of the work I am remembering has been voided by new data.

Core is basically an iron ball

and your basic wiki articles that apply....
Moon Geology
Lunar "Soil"/regolith
Moon Rock

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The moon has to be Swiss cheese, without the holes it would come down.

Wake up, cowple.

[Peelee]

A surprisingly large amount of oxygen.

[Algeh]

For an alternate theory as to moon composition, see the excellent and highly-researched game Katamari Damacy.

[Eldan]

A surprisingly large amount of oxygen.

Not that surprising. Oxygen is very common in almost all rocks. Iron Oxide, silica, various clays, all made up of a lot of oxygen.

[Bohandas]

moon rocks

[Peelee]

Not that surprising. Oxygen is very common in almost all rocks. Iron Oxide, silica, various clays, all made up of a lot of oxygen.

But not very common in katamari, which as Algeh pointed out is very well-vetted science.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Not that surprising. Oxygen is very common in almost all rocks. Iron Oxide, silica, various clays, all made up of a lot of oxygen.

Speaking of oxygen: when the moon astronauts got back into their lander module they said the moon dust (from their "pocket sample", the first bit they grabbed so they had something in case of an emergency departure) smelled like burnt gunpowder. Something on at least that part of the moons surface reacts readily to molecular oxygen. I don't know if by now they confirmed exactly what it was. (It might even have been caused by the fact they used their landing thrusters at that spot???) At the time it couldn't be replicated on Earth because the seal on the sealed containers didn't work well enough (under coming back from the moon conditions), nothing that should react to oxygen was left in the moon dust samples when they got back to Earth.

[shawnhcorey]

The surface: mostly silica. The core: mostly iron.

[Rakaydos]

The surface: mostly silica. The core: mostly iron.

Nope. Theia's iron core mered with proto-earth's when they collided. The moon is almost entirely Mantle material.

[shawnhcorey]

Nope. Theia's iron core mered with proto-earth's when they collided. The moon is almost entirely Mantle material.

It has a geochemically distinct crust, mantle, and core. The Moon has a solid iron-rich inner core with a radius possibly as small as 240 kilometres (150 mi) and a fluid outer core primarily made of liquid iron with a radius of roughly 300 kilometres (190 mi). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon#Internal_structure

[danzibr]

For an alternate theory as to moon composition, see the excellent and highly-researched game Katamari Damacy.

Ha, I got a kick out of this.

[wumpus]

I know for a fact that the moon isn't made out of cheese? But seriously what does the moon really made out of anyway?

I've heard that the Beresheet Lunar lander had a least some cheese on board, indicating that the composition of the Moon now includes at least trace quantities of cheese.

The "touchable" lunar rock at the Smithsonian has never felt much like cheese, although after nearly 50 years cheese might appear lunarlithic.