Fact #044
Strange but true
The Moon's dark patches are called seas because early astronomers thought that's what they were. The names stuck anyway.
Giovanni Riccioli laid down the naming scheme in 1651: Sea of Tranquility, Ocean of Storms, Sea of Crises. They're actually vast plains of solidified basalt from ancient lava floods. Four centuries later we still land spacecraft in places named for weather that never happened.
Source: Lunar and Planetary Institute (opens in a new tab) · checked Aug 2026