does the moon look right?

[Aarrow]

Does the surface of the moon look like we would expect if it was once molten??

If the moon was molten at one time, the magma would have undergone a daily tide cycle due to the gravitational pull of the earth. The tidal shifts would have been massive, especially presuming that the moon was closer to the earth at that time. As the moon hardened, wouldn't the surface have been textured by the rising and falling tidal magma as it slowly cooled? You would get a wave like swirled pattern similar to what you would get if you let a bucket of plaster harden while you were tipping the bucket back and forth. Wouldn't that pattern still be very visible since the moon hasn't really changed much since it's formation? Wouldn't the surface look a little more like the grooves and ridges seen on Jupiter's Ganymede?

[Shaula]

Bear in mind the Moon has taken a pummelling from meteorites since it was born as well as having once been volcanically active. It has largely been resurfaced (the maria, for example, are remnants of volcanism that happened some time after the surface had solidified, then there are those impacts I mentioned especially the Late Heavy Bombardment) since it was born.

[publiusr]

Bonnestell would have been disappointed. You have to go to Miranda to see anything wild. The Moon has erosion--lunar gardening of micrometeroids that leave a rolling surface--not the craggy peaks of old painings we were all hoping for. In the Pre-space age days, we could see Venus as a Jungle Planet and Mars--though a dying world--was closer to Spock's Vulcan than the moon with bad weather we see today.

[a1call]

One should not see the moon as a single solid piece, but rather multitudes of pieces like a sand dune which can settle and reform as a result of gravitational forces.

[Shaula]

One should not see the moon as a single solid piece, but rather multitudes of pieces like a sand dune which can settle and reform as a result of gravitational forces.

The Moon is a solid body, only the regolith is anything like a sand dune. And that layer is only a few metres deep.

[Romanus]

The Moon was probably tidally locked long before its surface activity ceased.

[a1call]

On a planetary scale the tiniest fluidity Will be significant enough to settle any relatively minor peaks in the course of millions of years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscosi...sity_of_solids

[Shaula]

On a planetary scale the tiniest fluidity Will be significant enough to settle any relatively minor peaks in the course of millions of years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscosi...sity_of_solids

Which is different to the fluidity of a sand dune. And I think you are an order of magnitude off at the very least when you say millions. Remember the lower gravity.