From Chandrayaan Wiki

Moon is the most prominent object in the night sky. From time immemorial, moon is familiar to humans. Moon is the nearest celestial body to Earth and lies at a distance of about 384,000 km from here. And, Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth. It travels round Earth once in 27.3 days and takes the same time to spin around its own axis. Thus, one hemisphere of the moon ('the farside') is not visible to us.

In terms of diameter, moon is one fourth the size of Earth and its mass is 1/81 of Earth. Gravity on the surface of the moon is only one sixth of that on Earth.

Like Earth, the moon too is a world with mountains, plateaus, plains, lowlands, and of course, craters. But, unlike Earth, the moon does not have an atmosphere. Thus, liquid water cannot exist on the moon. But, results from the recent unmanned spacecraft missions have raised the possibility of what appears to be the presence of water ice in the lunar polar regions. Formation and evolution of our moon are of importance in understanding the history of our solar system.

Similar to many other ancient civilizations, the moon finds a prominent place in Indian mythology too. In ancient Indian literature, the moon is considered to be god and is symbolised by Soma. Many poets of India, including the famous ancient Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, have chosen the moon as the subject of their poems. The moon, especially the full moon, has been treated as an object of beauty and compared with beautiful things or people. In one of his verses, Kalidasa requests his patron king Bhojaraja to provide him with a sumptuous meal that includes curds made from buffalo milk resembling moonlight during the post monsoon season.

Similarly, for over 2000 years, various science fiction writers from the second century AD Greek writer Lucien to the 19th century science fiction writer Jules Verne have treated the moon as the target of their exploring heroes.