The Moon Unit [MU]

The story of my discovery of the Moon Unit goes back to the Introduction to Astrophysics course I had taken during my Junior year at George Mason University in the Spring of 2016. While attempting to solve a problem, I believe it was determining the mass of the moon, I observed that every other significant measurement had its own unit. The distance between the Earth and the Sun was the Astronomical Unit, the mass of the Sun was the Solar Mass, the mass of the Earth also had its own unit. However, there was one fundamental unit of measure that had yet to be defined.

It has been said that there are known knowns, known unknowns, as well as unknown unknowns. The Moon Unit falls into the latter category - it seemed at the time that the scientific community was unaware that this measurement even needed to be defined. Without this key value I spent hours... hours trying to solve the problem and others that were similar, to no avail. Eventually, the situation transcended a simple in-class assingment and grew into my unceasing quest to resolve one of the last remaining mysteries nature had to offer. Luckily, it took only around 10-15 minutes for me to venture off the beaten path, define the Moon Unit, and rewrite astrophysics as we know it - perhaps even the world. When speculating whether the Moon Unit is the greatest unit of measure of all time, there is some hesitation because that may be an unfair statement, but yes, it is.

With the history out of the way, it's time to get down to the brass tacks. As someone reading this page will undoubtedly know, the Moon Unit is the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Before my discovery, terms like 'Lunar Distance', 'Distance to the Moon', and 'Distance to the Lunar' were my most frequent google searches. Each gave the same result - 384,402 km (238,856 mi) - the distance now commonly accepted to be 1 Moon Unit (or MU, or mu).

After minutes of painstaking effort in the discovery process of this unit of measure, and hours of hard work poured into this website proclaiming my eureka moment, I have recently discovered that there already is a unit of length called 'lunar distance', with symbol [LD]. It's hard to tell whether or not this is a case of an opportunistic peer of mine scooping my discovery and beating me to publication *cough*Torrence*cough* - I will admit that it's hard not to be the slightest degree bitter about the whole ordeal. Whatever the chronological order of events, I am proud of my work and will continue on the path that my investigation has taken me.