Few objects in the Solar System record the remarkable history of our planetary neighbourhood more starkly than the Moon. Not only does it bear the scars of eons of impacts by asteroids and comets, but its very existence is testament to a cataclysmic collision that's thought to have forged the Earth we stand on today. When we gaze at the airless lunar surface, a barren landscape of deep shadows, shining mountain peaks and grey basalt plains, we can also reflect on our own small imprint, quite literally, on the cosmos. The footprints of humanity's first Solar System explorers remain there even to this day, and likely will do for millennia yet. In this feature, we highlight eight areas for you to examine with a telescope that tell the story of the past, present and future of our nearest neighbour. Let's start by rolling the clock back to the Moon's early days.
1. The seas of the lunar nearside
Eons of heavy bombardment formed the Moon's basins
About 4.5 billion years ago, the Moon was formed in a violent impact when an object about the size of Mars smashed into the early Earth. This cataclysm left a cloud of superheated material circling Earth that, so
