Artemis II mission: Facts about the Moon

In the next few weeks a team of astronauts will travel around the Moon as part of the Artemis II mission.

The 10-day mission will see Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, blast around the Moon and back again.

It's been 50 years since any country last sent astronauts to the Moon, and the mission is part of Nasa's long-term plan to eventually have astronauts live on the Moon.

But just how far away is the Moon, and how many times have humans been to it? Let's find out all about it below!

It might not seem that far away when we gaze up at it at night, but the Moon is actually around 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometres) away.

In fact, you could fit around 30 Earth-sized planets between the Moon and the Earth!

The Moon is smaller than the Earth - it's around a third of the size, with a diameter (that's the distance from one side of a circle to the other through the centre) of about 2,159.2 miles (3,475 km).

According to Nasa, the Moon is slowly moving away from Earth, getting about an inch farther away each year.

Over the years several countries have completed Moon missions, however, only the USA have successfully landed people - 12 astronauts in total - on the lunar surface.

The first nation to land a spacecraft on the Moon's surface, was the Soviet Union, with their Luna 2 mission in 1959.

As part of the mission an empty spacecraft was crashed on purpose into the Moon's surface at high speed, to help them to figure out how to land more safely in the future.

Since then a total of five nations have successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon: The Soviet Union (Interkosmos), the United States (NASA), China (CNSA), India (ISRO), and Japan (JAXA).

However, the first ever crewed landing to put people on the Moon, was on 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong, a Nasa astronaut who was part of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first human to walk on the surface of the Moon.

650 million people around the world were glued to their televisions to watch the moment that Neil stepped onto the surface, where he said the famous words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

The team spent 21 hours on its surface, including a seven-hour sleep, before returning to Earth.

The last time a person landed on the Moon was more than 50 years ago, in 1972 as part of Nasa's Apollo 17 mission.

Most scientists agree that the Moon was formed around 4.5 billion years ago after a small planet - named Theia - smashed into Earth.

The leftover molten rock and debris from Earth and Theia's impact then cooled, fusing together to form the Moon.

The newly formed Moon then began orbiting around the Earth.

It takes the Moon around 27 days to orbit our planet, and as it travels we see it lit up in different ways, like full, half or crescent, which we call the phases of the moon.

The Moon does not shine with its own light like the Sun does, instead it reflects light coming from the Sun.

Unfortunately for Wallace and Gromit, the Moon is not made of cheese, but metals and rock.

Similar to our own Earth, the Moon is made up of layers; a solid central core, a mostly solid/partly liquid mantle, and a thin outer crust - a bit like a chocolate-covered cherry.

Long ago the Moon had active volcanoes, but today they are all dormant and have not erupted for millions of years.

The Moon's surface is covered in holes and craters from things like comets, asteroids and meteoroids crashing into it.

Scientists first identified the existence of water on the Moon's surface in 2009, as part of the Indian mission Chandrayaan-1, and later missions confirmed there was more water than we thought on the Moon.