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Moons of our Solar System
Moons of our Solar System

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

Introduction and guidance

Welcome to this free course, Moons of our Solar System.

The course lasts 8 weeks with approximately 3 hours of study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another week. The eight weeks consist of the following:

  1. What are moons?
  2. Looking at moons
  3. Looking closer
  4. Our Moon
  5. What we learned from the Moon
  6. Water on the Moon
  7. Exploring moons
  8. Moons and the future

There are lots of opportunities to check your learning. This includes interactive quizzes; Weeks 4 and 8 will provide you with an opportunity to earn a badge to demonstrate your new skills. You can read more on how to study the course and about badges in the next sections.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

  • develop an awareness of the nature and diversity of moons in our Solar System, and their significance
  • describe the compositions and nature of the surfaces and interiors of moons
  • describe the nature and history of volcanic activity on several moons, assess and be aware of which moons may have subsurface oceans, and the implications for hosting native life
  • describe and be aware of the history of discovery and exploration of moons, and of future prospects
  • reflect and suggest ways in which resources from the Moon may help future space exploration.

Moons Facebook group

There is no official online forum for this course. However, learners who completed a previous version of this course, and want to maintain their connection with moons have set up a Moons Facebook group [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Feel free to drop in, to swap experiences with, or seek advice from, your predecessors.

Moving around the course

In the ‘Summary’ at the end of each week, you can find a link to the next one. If at any time you want to return to the start of the course, click on ‘Course content’. From here you can navigate to any part of the course. Alternatively, use the week links at the top of every page of the course.

It’s also good practice, if you access a link from within a course page (including links to the quizzes), to open it in a new window or tab. That way you can easily return to where you’ve come from without having to use the back button on your browser.