Final answer:
The Moon's surface features, like impact craters and lunar maria, formed as a result of space objects impacting its surface. Billions of years of these impacts have created a layer of fine-grained lunar dust. The Moon itself is believed to have been created from debris ejected after a massive impact between Earth and a Mars-sized object.
Step-by-step explanation:
The features on the Moon's surface are primarily the result of impacts from space objects. When an object from space, like a meteoroid, hits the Moon, it causes an explosion that creates a crater. These impact craters can be large or small, with some having raised rims, central peaks, and ejecta blankets—debris that has been blasted out of the crater. The Moon’s lunar maria, dark flat plains, are vast splotches of darker lava flows, visible even without a telescope, and are the result of volcanic activity that followed large impacts.
Over billions of years, numerous impacts have shattered the rocks on the lunar surface, creating a layer of fine-grained soil known as lunar dust. This dust is made of tiny rock fragments and is very pervasive, as evidenced by its adherence to astronaut suits during moon landings. The presence of many of these craters and the lunar dust shows that the Moon has been constantly bombarded by cosmic objects throughout its history.
The Giant Impact Hypothesis suggests that the Moon itself may have formed as a result of a colossal impact between the Earth and a Mars-sized object early in our solar system's history. This event would have been powerful enough to eject debris into orbit around Earth, some of which eventually coalesced to form the Moon.