In full sunshine, temperatures on the Moon reach 127°C, way above boiling point. There are 13 and a half days of high temperatures followed by 13 and a half days of darkness, and once the Sun goes down the temperature at the bottom of craters can plummet to -173°C.
Instead of a $3 oven mitt, Apollo astronauts wore A7-L spacesuits which used a combination of insulation, reflective surfaces, and an ice sublimator to regulate temperature. The suit consisted of many parts, but the biggest were the “Torso-limb suit assembly” and the “Integrated Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment.”
Temperature: When Neil Armstrong took his small step for man, it would have been around 130 degrees celsuis in the sunlit places and -40 degree in the shadows.
Taking the Moon's Temperature
Daytime temperatures near the lunar equator reach a boiling 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120° C, 400 K), while nighttime temperatures get to a chilly -208 degrees Fahrenheit (-130° C, 140 K). The Moon's poles are even colder.
It is the Moon's lack of atmosphere that creates such extreme temperatures. The Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to absorb sunlight like the Earth does, and so the surface gets very hot. The Moon's lack of atmosphere also lets heat escape during lunar nights so that it gets rather chilly on the surface!
Scientists at Arizona State University studied photos taken at different times of day and saw shadows of the flags around the poles. While the flags are still there, it's doubtful whether the distinctive stars and stripes are still visible, said ASU professor Mark Robinson, the chief scientist for the cameras.
Unlike the moon's surface, which heats up to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) during the day and drops to minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 173 degrees Celsius) at night, these lunar pits in the Mare Tranquillitatis region have a human-friendly, stable temperature.
Well, because the Moon doesn't have a significant atmosphere like Earth, it does not experience weather, like wind or atmospheric temperature or precipitation like rain and snow.
During a full moon, however, the "dark side" is truly dark. Scientists estimate that the far side of the moon gets as hot as 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 Celsius) during the day, and negative 297 (minus 183 Celsius) during the lunar night. China is the first country to deploy a lander to the far side of the moon.
Without a "thermal blanket," Mars can't retain any heat energy. On average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees F (minus 60 degrees Celsius) according to NASA. In winter, near the poles, temperatures can get down to minus 195 degrees F (minus 125 degrees C).
The entire EVA phase lasted more than two-and-a-half hours, ending at 111 hours, 39 minutes into the mission. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the moon's surface.
The most famous thing Neil Armstrong left on the moon 35 years ago is a footprint, a boot-shaped depression in the gray moondust. Millions of people have seen pictures of it, and one day, years from now, lunar tourists will flock to the Sea of Tranquility to see it in person.
On the Moon, water is found all over the surface, but it's mainly in the form of ice and not pools of liquid water. Some places have more water than others.
An astronaut floating without a suit in space wouldn't survive, but their demise would happen within minutes, not within seconds, and it would be a gnarly exit, with boiling bodily fluids and a nearly frozen nose and mouth. Related: Why is space a vacuum?
So, the main takeaway here is that the temperature of the sun can only be felt if there is matter to absorb it. space has almost no matter in it; hence the coldness.
This space suit is capable of protecting the astronaut from temperatures ranging from −156 °C (−249 °F) to 121 °C (250 °F). During exploration of the Moon or Mars, there will be the potential for lunar or Martian dust to be retained on the space suit.
The Apollo 8 astronauts were the first humans to see the far side in person when they orbited the Moon in 1968.
According to NASA, the Boomerang Nebula is the coldest spot in the known cosmos, with a temperature of one degree Kelvin. One degree Kelvin is 458 degrees Fahrenheit, or roughly 272 degrees Celsius. The lowest temperature recorded on Earth was 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit in Vostok, Antarctica.
Tidal locking
As this NASA animation shows (right), this means that the same portion of the Moon always faces towards the Earth, and we can never see the far side.
How many flags are on the Moon? A total of six flags have been planted on the Moon – one for each US Apollo landing.
The political tug-of-war over NASA's mission and budget isn't the only reason people haven't returned to the moon. The moon is also a 4.5-billion-year-old death trap for humans and must not be trifled with or underestimated. Its surface is littered with craters and boulders that threaten safe landings.
Data from two Chinese orbiters helped a team of scientists explain why a patch of lunar terrain is so much warmer than the surrounding area.
NASA says microorganisms could be hiding in the south pole of the Moon. The microorganisms likely originated on Earth and traveled to the Moon through humans and their space objects. NASA says microbial life may exist in the harsh environment of the lunar south pole.
Humans have not been on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.