The Landscape of Silence When you look up at the Moon on a clear night, it feels nearly familiar — like an old snap you’ve seen too numerous times to really see presently. But that face gaping back at us is n’t stationary or simple. Every shadow, every pale upland and dark plain, every crater hem and glowing crest is a story — a record of four and a half billion times of cosmic history sculpted into gemstone. Let’s pull that face piecemeal subcaste by subcaste. The thing then is n’t just to study craters or swell; it’s to understand what they mean — how this world came a frozen monument to time itself. 1. The Moon’s Surface First prints At first regard, the Moon looks like two worlds fused together — one light, one dark. The light regions are the mounds — rugged, heavily cratered, and ancient. They reflect sun well because they’re made of pale, calcium-rich gemstone called anorthosite, formed when lighter minerals floated to the face of the early lunar magma ocean.