Editing Luna (section)

==IRL==
The Moon, being Earth's eternal companion, has been watching over us since we were just hunter-gathers who just figured out this whole 'walking on two legs and using tools' business - and our evolutionary ancestors before that. As a result, the Moon is an ingrained part of humanity's collective culture, capturing our imaginations since before the dawn of history. In modern times it's the celestial body other than the Earth that we know the most about, and as mentioned previously the one we actually managed to walk around on.

Currently, science believes that Luna came into existence by the death of another body shortly after the formation of the Earth itself. ~4.5 billion years ago, [[Exterminatus|the latest collision in a cataclysmic game of cosmic billiards]] that was the Solar System forming would involve young Terra and a Mars-sized protoplanet dubbed Theia. This giant impact would see Theia destroyed, and Earth survive (though in what state is still debated, though it definitely extended the 'primordial hellscape' phase) - debris from the corpse as well as Terra would get trapped in orbit and coalesce into the Moon. Besides making the Moon (and causing phenomena related to it), Theia's crash-and-burn is also the most likely culprit for what gave Earth its axial tilt, so if you live somewhere with four seasons, this is why.

Since then, the Moon's become tidally locked, hence why there's a "dark side" that faces away from us. It's also drifted away significantly, which it continues to do so at a snail's pace. Finally, ever since its formation, the Moon has been responsible for stabilizing the Earth's tilt so it doesn't drift significantly (which prevents having the same wild temperature swings as say, [[Mercury]]), as well as creating tides.

The Moon's distinctive look is caused by the fact it has no atmosphere, so any meteor that gets caught on a crash course will impact the surface. Smaller major impacts cause the large craters on the Moon, while the largest ones back in the day made Luna vomit up its insides and create giant oceans of lava which we call 'lunar mare' long after they hardened into rock.