Splitting of Moon Hoax - Rima Ariadaeus

The Splitting of Moon Hoax is a hoax that has been circulated around the world by means of Internet etc. It is related to the Miracle of Splitting of the moon by Muhammad. This hoax emerged after one of the Apollo Missions.
The hoax claims that NASA Scientists had proved that the moon had been split by Prophet Muhammad. The claims were based on a picture of a rocky belt on the moon where one can see the picture of Rima Ariadaeus a lunar rille which extends on the moons surface for 300 Miles.
The Hoax
The text of the Hoax is as follows.

=== "Miracle of Prophet Muhammad - The split of Moon 'Proved by Scientists' Moon Split"===
"This picture shows the location of the "Rocky Belt" which shows the moon was once split. The unbelievers of Makkah said to the prophet that if you are truly a prophet split the moon and if you do we shall believe. It was a full moon that night...
And so the prophet prayed to Allah to grant him this miracle, and the moon was split. half was seen over Mount. Saffa, and the other half was seen over Mount. Kaikaan.
The people said that the prophet has placed a spell on us, however if he played trick on us, then he cant play trick on all the people in the world! Abu Jahl then said: "let us wait until the people of Albadiah come, and if they saw the moon split, then it is true, if not then we all know it was a trick of magic. When the people of Albadiah came they said that they too saw the moon split, and the disbelievers said "oh, how powerful Mohammad's magic is!" Then Allah revealed Surat al Qamar: "The hour has come near and the moon has split, and when they see a sign, they turn and say 'this is a continuous magic' and they disbelieved abd followed their desires..."
This took place in the days of the prophet Muhammad in Makkad.
In one of Dr. Zaghlool Al-Najaar's seminars, in one of the British universities said: "The miracle of the splitting of the moon has been proven recently"... "One of the british brothers who is very concerned about the state of Islam "Dawood Musa" who is the new chairman of the British Muslims party said "While he was searching for a religion, a friend gave him a copy of the Quran translated in english. he opened it & came across surat Al-Qamar & read "The hour has come & the moon has split", looking at this he said 'The moon has split?! he then stopped reading & did not open it again.
Then one day while watching a program on the BBC, the broadcaster was talking with 3 American scientists, & the broadcaster was blaming America for spending billions of dollars on space projects, in a time where millions of people are suffering from poverty.The scientists were trying to explain why it is important to go into space exploration. Soon the scientists came to discuss the most expensive trip tp the moon, which costed about $100 billion, so the broadcaster asked them "So to put the American flag on the moon you spent this much money?!"
The scientists stated that this much money was spent because they were trying to study the internal structure of the moon to see what similarities it has with the Earth, & they said that they were surprised to find a 'Belt of Rocks' that goes from the surface of the moon right to the inner depths.
Being quite surprised, they gave this information to their geologists, who were also surprised, as they concluded that this couldn't be unless the moon was once split & resealed. The rocks on the belt are a result of the impact during the time that 2 halves of the moon recombined.
Watching this brother Dawood Mussa jumped off his seat screaming "This is Muhammad's miracle which occurred more than 1400 years ago, & now the Americans are spending billions of dollars to prove it to the Muslims. He then said "This must surely be a true religion, & so, where once Surat Al-Qamar was a cause for him disbelieving in Islam, it was now the reason for him embracing Islam..."
Arguments Against the Evidence
* Compared to the radius of the moon which is 1737.4 km and a circumference of 10917 kilometers this is a very small fraction (about 0.03). Moreover there are many other such faults on surface on the moon.
* The rille is not the only rille on the surface of the moon. There are many such rilles of various shapes and sizes. Such rilles have been discovered on other planets like Mars as well.
* The belt of rocks does not exist and it does not go deep into the surface of the Moon.
* This is a statement from Zaghloul El-Naggar and David Musa Pidcock which represents their personal views and is not a scientifically proven fact.
Statement from NASA
The view from NASA scientist Brad Bailey is that - "My recommendation is to not believe everything you read on the internet. Peer-reviewed papers are the only scientifically valid sources of information out there. No current scientific evidence reports that the Moon was split into two (or more) parts and then reassembled at any point in the past." This is as quoted on the Lunar Science website of NASA.

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