Lunar Orbit facts

While investigating facts about Lunar Orbit Rendezvous and Lunar Orbital Platform-gateway, I found out little known, but curios details like:

When the Apollo 8 astronauts were sued by an atheist activist for reading from Genesis in lunar orbit, the Supreme Court threw out the case. Their reason? "Lack of jurisdiction" in orbit around the Moon.

how long is a lunar orbit?

The most isolated human being ever was Al Worden, command module pilot of Apollo 15, who in lunar orbit was at a maximum distance of 2,235 miles from his fellow astronauts on the surface. While on the other side of the Moon, no communication with Earth or his comrades was possible.

Where is the moon in its orbit at the time of a lunar eclipse?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering point in the lunar orbit of a spacecraft at which it is furthest from the moon. Here are 24 of the best facts about Lunar Orbit Chandrayaan 2 and Lunar Orbit Insertion I managed to collect.

point at which a spacecraft in lunar orbit?

1. Apollo 10 was given limited fuel for orbiting the moon to discourage the astronauts from attempting a Lunar Landing ahead of the scheduled Apollo 11.

2. When Michael Collins remained in the lunar module, he was in Orbit on the "other" side of the moon. He was cut off from all radio contact, the most alone any human has ever been.

3. Fifty years ago, 5 unmanned lunar orbiters circled the moon, taking extremely high resolution photos of the surface that if you printed it would fit a billboard without losing any quality.

4. The Apollo 10 lunar module was jettisoned and is currently in orbit around the sun. It's exact location is unknown but a group of amateur astronomers have been looking for it since 2011.

5. While Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon the Soviet Union had an unmanned spacecraft in lunar orbit on a mission to obtain soil samples. It crashed on the moon the day Apollo 11 left.

6. The Apollo 10 lunar module is 100% intact and orbiting the sun.

7. Images from NASA's Lunar Orbiter in the '60s where hi-def even by today standards, but were published as grainy and low-res to hide US spying capabilities

8. During first lunar landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were literally lost for the duration of being on the Moon. Neither NASA nor Michael Collins from Columbia module orbiting the Moon were able to locate the landed Apollo 11 for 22 hours it remained on the surface.

9. All solar eclipses are new moons and all lunar eclipses are full moons, but the opposite isn't true because the moon orbits the earth in a different plane than the earth orbits the sun. Only when the moon crosses the earth's orbital plane during a new or full moon does an eclipse occur.

10. There was a third astronaut with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission, Michael Collins, who stayed back on Apollo 11 (orbiting the moon) while Neil and Buzz took the lunar module and made history on the moon’s surface.

Why is the lunar cycle different from its orbit?

You can easily fact check why aren't lunar orbiters pulled back to earth by examining the linked well-known sources.

In 1206 a water-powered astronomical clock was built. It is known as Al-Jazari's castle clock and stood at 108 feet. This design had multiple functions such as displaying the zodiac, displaying lunar and solar orbits, and had "musicians" that played when moved by levers that were attached to a water wheel.

The ascent stage of Apollo 10s Lunar Module, "Snoopy", was pushed into a heliocentric orbit and is still out there orbiting the sun to this day. - source

In 2009, we photographed footprints from the Apollo 14 mission while in lunar orbit. - source

The first earth creatures to reach Lunar orbit were a collection of tortoises, insects, and plants launched on the USSR's Zond 5 in September 1968.

NASA is developing a space station in a lunar orbit for deep space research - source

When did apollo 11 enter lunar orbit?

The Apollo 10 lunar module was jettisoned and is currently in a heliocentric orbit. It is the last surviving lunar module that actually saw spaceflight. It's exact location is unknown, as it wasn't tracked after 1969.

How high is lunar orbit?

No person has been either on the Moon or in lunar orbit since 1972.

The first commercial lunar operations technically happened in 1998: a communications satellite, mistakenly launched into an unusable orbit without enough fuel to correct it directly, was salvaged by instead flying by the moon for a gravity assist

Flat Earthers believe lunar eclipses are caused by "the Shadow Object", a 5-to-10-mile-wide satellite that orbits close to the sun.

JPL engineers pass out peanuts before every launches, orbital insertions, or landings. This tradition stems from an engineer passing out peanuts during the Ranger 7 lunar probe launch, the first successful mission after 6 previous failures.

The moon has actually orbited the earth a few billion times more than it has appeared from lunar cycles; also, the earth's precession cycle takes about 25,770 years to complete.