We've long thought that the moon was round like a football, but it appears this is not the case. In fact, the moon is slightly flattened with a bulge on one side. It's pretty difficult to tell from just looking at images on the web, but it is true if scientists are to be believed.
Astronauts landed on the surface of the moon 45 years ago, since then, we've learned a lot more of the moon than ever before. However, efforts to realize the exact shape of the overgrown rock were unsuccessful due to the large craters on the surface.
Furthermore, there have been several inconsistencies of what we know of the moon's past, and its measurements.
The moon appears to have an equatorial bulge that is caused by rotation, but that shouldn't be the case since it barely spins. Ian Garrick-Bethell, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says the moon doesn't have the same tectonics like Earth, so it shouldn't be deformed.
"There's no plate tectonics like on the Earth," Dr. Garrick-Bethell said. "Why is it so deformed?"
It could only mean that the moon isn't rounded as we've come to believe, but flattened slightly on a certain area. Scientists believe the real shape of the moon is similar to that of a lemon, so let that sink in for a while. Our moon has the shape of a lemon, how interesting.
How did this happen?
Bethell and his colleagues concluded that the moon acquired its shape due to a gravitational process known as tidal heating. This process stretches the moon's crust as it is being formed, and the equatorial bulge was likely from the earlier period of the moon when it was spinning, but moving away from the Earth as it slows down. This caused for a freezing of the tidal surge in place, which is the cause of the bulge.
This is indeed an interesting find, though like many studies such as this, it is not complete, and the scientists here could be wrong in their assessment. Chances are, the moon is just as round as an orange, or even as flat as a dinner plate. More research is needed before the scientific community can come to an overwhelming conclusion.
