You will be investigating several aspects of the moon NOT covered in the reading material. Good luck on this lunar scavenger hunt.
Part 1 - The image below was taken during a total solar eclipse. It shows a phenomena (the bright spots) around the limb that has a nickname in astronomy. Find the name of this feature and what causes it.
Answer: This is known as Baily's Beads. The lunar surface is not smooth. It has mountains and valleys. Under the right conditions, some sunlight will get thought a valley (in the upper right) .... or be blocked by mountains (dark gaps in lower left).
Part 2 - Are there any parts of the moon that are in perpetual sunlight? If so, where are they? If not, what area(s) of the moon receives the most sunlight? Why is this of some importance in terms of future exploration of the moon?
Answer: The lunar cycle (synodic month) is 29½ days so any place on the surface is in sunlight for about 2 weeks and in darkness for 2 weeks ..... except near the lunar poles. Imagine a mountain near the north or south pole of the moon. It may be possible for this mountaintop to receive almost perpetual sunlight. Japan launched a lunar orbiter named KAYUGA and determined that the north pole receives near constant sun (89%), and the southern pole 86%. The reason this become interesting is it becomes a great place to eventually place a lunar station. You can get solar power almost continually. The next answer is a continuation of this idea.
Part 3 - Are there any parts of the moon that are in perpetual darkness? If so, where are they? If not, what area(s) of the moon receives the least sunlight? Why is this of some importance in terms of future exploration of the moon?
Answer: There is no doubt that there are depression craters near the lunar poles that never see sunlight. This is important for future stations on the moon because these depressions may be "cold traps" for water. Imagine a comet (which is mostly frozen water) crashes near the lunar poles. That ice could still be there. There have been several attempts to discover if this is actually the case. We've even deliberately crashed spacecraft in these depressions to see what might fly out (nothing 100% conclusive yet). Why is water important? Besides water for drinking, water contains hydrogen and oxygen. Use some of that perpetual sunlight to split water into these two gasses and you now have something to breath and a fuel.
Part 4 - The image below is a footprint left by Neil Armstrong. What was this stuff he stepped in? What is it called and how was it formed?
Answer: This lunar soil is called regolith. It consists of very fine dust powder and small rock grains 1 cm across and can be anywhere from 5 -10 meters thick.. It originally formed when nearby impacts pulverized bedrock, and the ash rained back down to the surface. Since the moon has no atmosphere, this ash is restructured by constant impacts of micrometeorites, the solar wind, and galactic cosmic rays.
Part 5 - A small group of "conspiracy theorists" have suggested that the Apollo missions to the moon were faked. If you believe that, offer evidence to support this claim. If not, offer evidence that man really went on the moon.
Answer: As saying goes, "Three men can keep a secret only if two of them are dead". Over 400,000 people were involved with the mission to land on the moon. I believe it would be harder to fake 6 lunar landings than to actually do it. I guess you don't have to wonder which side of the debate I stand on. I'll just toss out some of my main points: #1 - If the first moon landing was a fake, why bother to do it five more times? #2 - With the right equipment, you can bounce a signal off the moon by reflectors left by the astronauts. How did those reflectors get there? #3 - Lunar orbiters have taken photos of the landing sites .. or were these pictures also photoshopped? #4 - We saw the rockets take off, we saw them land. If they did not go to the moon, the only other place to go is earth orbit. They would easily be visible as they orbited the earth every 90 minutes. Finally, it is an insult to the memory of the Apollo 1 astronauts who died in this quest ... to even suggest that this was all a sham.