The Moon and three other bright lights form a beautiful diamond in tomorrow’s dawn sky. Going clockwise from the Moon, the points of the diamond are the planet Jupiter, which is the brightest of the three; the planet Mars; and the star Elnath, the tip of one of the horns of Taurus.

The Sun illuminates about a third of the side of the Moon that’s facing our way. The most prominent feature in the sunlight is a giant dark patch known as the Ocean of Storms. It’s one of the largest features on the Moon. It covers one and a half million square miles – about one-tenth of the Moon’s entire surface.

A half dozen probes have landed in that vast region, including the Apollo 12 mission in 1969.

The most recent lander was Chang’e 5. The Chinese mission brought about four pounds of rocks and dirt back to Earth, in 2020. The samples indicated that the “ocean” formed about two billion years ago, when the Moon was about half of its current age. That makes the Ocean of Storms the youngest of the Moon’s big volcanic plains.

The feature may have formed when molten rock pushed its way to the surface through long, wide cracks. But the origin is still being debated. Some scientists say it formed after a massive asteroid slammed into the Moon. The impact gouged a wide crater that later filled with lava – forming a giant “ocean” on the Moon.

The Moon will stand close to Mars on Wednesday; more about that tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield