Most of the time, the earth’s moon is just hanging up in the sky, glowing a marshmallow-blue glow while we terrestrials go about our slothing and cavorting and hungering and social networking and whatever else catches our easily led fancy. Most days, the moon is just there; some place we used to visit and now only talk about going back to, kind of like how adults muse about high school reunions. NASA, perhaps in an effort to polish up the dull appreciation most of us have for our planet’s only natural satellite, has put together a video that shows the evolution of the moon over the last ~4.5 billion years.

Despite our modern impression that the moon just hangs there listlessly, one thing you’ll notice in this video…. our moon has taken an absolute beating by meteors over the eons. While tonight’s moon phase will be a waning crescent so you won’t be able to see all of its spherical splendor, at least now you’ll know how some of those craters and scratches got there.

Once you’ve gotten a better grasp on how the moon got there in the first place, check out a second video that NASA released recently: a guided tour of the moon. You’ll get up close and personal with all of those meteor-born pockmarks that cover the face of the moon. And not to diminish the natural wonder of it all, but don’t be surprised if you don’t spy some moon Nazis in the video.