Imparting a certain mystery to the most familiar objects

The Moon: A Popular Treatise by Garrett Putman Serviss is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Introduction

Imparting a certain mystery to the most familiar objects

One serene evening, when the full moon, rising slowly above the tree tops, began to spread over the landscape that peculiar radiance which, by half revealing and half concealing, by softening all outlines, and by imparting a certain mystery to the most familiar objects, fascinates at once the eye and the imagination, I was walking with a friend, a lady of charming intelligence, in a private park adjoining an old mansion in one of the most beautiful districts of central New York. For a long time we both remained silent, admiring the scene before us, so different in every aspect from its appearance in the glare of daylight—each occupied with the thoughts that such a spectacle suggests. Suddenly my friend turned to me and said:

“Tell me—for, like so many thousand others, I am virtually ignorant of these mysteries of the sky—tell me, what is that moon? What do astronomers really know about it?”

“But,” I replied, “you certainly exaggerate your ignorance. You must have read what so many books have told about the moon.”

“Not a word,” was the reply, “or at least, what I have read has made little impression upon my mind. I read few books of science; generally they repel me. But face to face with that marvelous moon, I find it irresistible, and my desire for knowledge concerning it becomes intense. I remember something about eclipses, and something about tides, with which, I believe, the moon is concerned. I recall the statement that the moon has no atmosphere, but does possess great mountains and volcanoes. Yet these things are so jumbled in my memory with technical statements which failed to interest me, that really my ignorance remains profound. But I have heard that many surprising discoveries have been made lately concerning the moon, and that astronomers have succeeded in taking wonderful photographs of scenes in the lunar world. I have, indeed, seen copies of some of these photographs, but beyond awaking curiosity by their bizarre effects of light and shadow, they impressed me little, for lack, I suppose, of information as to their meaning. I beg you, then, to tell me what is really known about the world of the moon. There it is; I see it; I experience the delightful impressions which its light produces—but, after all, what is it, and what should we behold if we could go there? I once read Jules Verne’s romance of a trip to the moon, but unfortunately his adventurers never really got there, and I finished the story with a keen sense of disappointment because, in the end, he told so very little about the moon itself. As for the professional books of the astronomers they are useless to me. Then, please tell me that which, at this moment, with that wonderful orb actually in sight, I so much desire to know.”

It was not possible to resist an appeal so earnestly urged, but I felt compelled to say: “Since you remember so little about the fundamental facts which generations of astronomers have accumulated concerning our nearest neighbor in the sky, I must, for the sake of completeness, and in order to put you au courant with the more captivating things that will come later, begin at the beginning, and the true beginning is not among the mountains of the moon, but here on the earth. We must start from our own globe—as the moon herself did.”

“What do you mean by that?” my friend asked with a tone of surprise.

“Have you not read, somewhere, in the last ten years, that the moon was actually born from the earth?”

“Yes, now that you mention it, I dimly recall something of the kind, but I took it for an extravagant speculation of some savant who possessed more imagination than solid knowledge.”

“The savant who originally demonstrated the earthly origin of the moon,” I replied, “is not one to be easily led into extravagance by his imagination. It is Prof. George Darwin, the son of the famous author of the ‘Origin of Species.’ I shall not mention his mathematics, which are troublesome, but allow me to tell you, in a word, that his investigations have satisfied astronomers that the earth and the moon once composed a single body. How many million years ago that was we can only guess. The causes of the separation which eventually occurred were the plastic condition of the original body while it was yet hot and molten, its swift axial rotation producing an immense centrifugal force at its equator, and the attraction of the sun raising huge tides which affected its entire mass instead of affecting only the waters of the ocean as the tides do at present. At last there came a time when an enormous portion of the swiftly rotating globe was torn loose. That portion included about one-eightieth of the entire mass of the earth. Some astronomers and geologists think that the ‘wound’ left in the side of the earth by this stupendous excision is yet traceable in the basin of the Pacific Ocean.

“The separation being once effected, the material that had escaped gradually assumed a globular form under the influence of the gravitation of its own particles; and, at the same time, by virtue of a curious reaction of the tidal attractions 7of the two bodies upon each other, the new-born globe was slowly forced away from its mother earth, becoming, in fact, its satellite. Thus, by a process which certainly does seem extravagantly imaginative, but which, nevertheless, is approved by strict mathematical deductions from known physical facts, the moon is believed to have had her birth.”

“Surely,” said my companion, “my imagination would never have dared to form such a picture, even if it had been capable of so extraordinary a flight.”

“No,” I replied, “nor the imagination of the most learned astronomer. You perceive that in things celestial as in things terrestrial fact is far more strange than fiction. We shall have occasion to refer to some of the consequences of the earthly origin of the moon later on, but just now in order that the knowledge you seek may not be too fragmentary, I must tell you some other, more commonly known, facts about our satellite.”

“Judging by myself I doubt if there are many such facts commonly known.”

“Perhaps you are right, but do not judge too severely the authors of astronomical books. Such books are written primarily for those who wish to study, not for those who desire to be intellectually entertained. But let me get through with my preliminaries, and then, under the guidance 8of science and photography, we shall try to visit the moon. One of the first questions that naturally arise concerning the objects that we see in the heavens relates to their distance from us. The average, or mean, distance of the moon from the earth is 238,840 miles. For the sake of a round number we usually call it 240,000 miles. But the orbit, or path, of the moon in her monthly journey around the earth, is so far from being a true circle that the distance is variable to the extent of 31,000 miles. Even the form of the moon’s path in space is not constant. Owing to the varying effects of the attraction of the earth and the sun, her elliptical orbit becomes now a little more and now a little less eccentric, the consequence being that the moon’s distance from the earth is continually changing. When she is at her greatest possible distance she is 253,000 miles away, but this distance at certain times, may be reduced to only 221,600 miles. As a result of these changes of distance the moon sometimes appears noticeably larger to our eyes than at other times.

“This leads us next to inquire, ‘What is the actual size of the moon?’ When we know the distance of any body from the eye it is not difficult to determine its size. The diameter of the moon is 2,163 miles. The face of the full moon contains 7,300,000 square miles. It is a little larger 9than the continent of South America. For a reason that we will speak of presently, the moon always keeps the same side toward us no matter in what part of its orbit it may be. Consequently we always see the same features of her surface and, except through inference, we do not know what exists on the other side of the lunar globe. Of the 7,300,000 square miles of surface which the moon presents to us, about 2,900,000 are occupied by those dark gray patches which you see so plainly spotting her face, and which were once supposed to be seas. The remaining 4,400,000 square miles consist of a very rough, broken country, ridged with gigantic mountains and containing hundreds of enormous craters, and mountain-ringed valleys, which are so vast that one hesitates to call them, what many of them seem evidently to be, extinct volcanoes. A single explosion of a volcano of the dimensions of some of these lunar monsters would shake the whole earth to its center!”

“Please stop a moment,” my friend laughingly interrupted. “So many merciless facts, chasing one at the heels of another, are as bad as the books on your science that I have tried to read. Give my imagination time to overtake you.”

“Very well,” I said, “then relieve your attention a little while by regarding the face of the 10moon. Do you perceive the portrait of the Moon Maiden there?”

“I believe I do, although I never noticed it before. It is in profile, is it not?”

“Yes, and it occupies all the central portion of the western half of the disk. Take the opera glass and you will see it more clearly.”

“Really, I find her quite charming,” said my companion, after gazing for a minute through the glass. “But what a coquette! Look at the magnificent jewel she wears at her throat, and the parure of pearls that binds her hair!”

“Yes,” I replied, “and no terrestrial coquette ever wore gems so unpurchasable as those with which the Moon Maiden has decked herself. That flaming jewel on her breast is a volcano, with a crater more than fifty miles across! Tycho, astronomers call it. Observe with the glass how broad rays shoot out from it in all directions. They are among the greatest mysteries of lunar scenery. And the string of brilliants in her hair consists of a chain of mountains greater than the Alps—the lunar Apennines. They extend more than 450 miles, and have peaks 20,000 feet high, which gleam like polished facets.”

“Truly,” said my companion, smiling, “these gigantesque facts of yours rather tend to dissipate the romantic impression that I had conceived of the Moon Maiden.”

11“No doubt,” I replied. “It is only distance that lends her enchantment. But we must not disregard the facts. Her hair, you perceive, is formed by some of the vast gray plains of which I spoke a few minutes ago. She is like a face in the clouds—approach her, or change the point of view and she disappears or dissolves into something else.

“Now, to return to my preliminaries, upon which I must insist. Knowing the distance and the size of the moon, the next question relates to her motions. You are aware that she travels around the earth about once every month. There are two ways in which we measure the length of time that the moon takes for each revolution. First, regarding the face of the sky as a great dial, with the stars for marks upon it, we notice the time that elapses between two successive conjunctions of the moon with the same star. In the interval she has gone completely around the earth and come back to the starting point. This is called the moon’s sidereal revolution, and it occupies, on the average, twenty-seven days, seven hours, forty-three minutes, twelve seconds. Every twenty-four hours the moon advances among the stars, from west to east, about 13° 11´.

“But there is another, more usual way of measuring the orbital period of the moon. This way is connected with her phases, or changes 12of shape, from the sickle of the New Moon to the round disk of the Full Moon, and back again to the reversed sickle of the waning moon. It is the time that elapses from one New Moon to the next, or from one Full Moon to the next which now concerns us, and it amounts, on the average, to twenty-nine days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes. This is called the moon’s synodic revolution, and it is equivalent to the ordinary lunar month. It is variable to the amount of about thirteen hours. The reason why the synodic revolution is more than two days longer than the sidereal revolution is because the continual advance of the earth in its orbit around the sun causes the latter to move eastward among the stars, and before the moon’s monthly phases, which depend upon her position with regard to the sun, can recommence, she must overtake the sun.”

“What a hopeless task to try to remember all that!”

“At any rate, if you cannot remember these things my conscience will be clear, for I am simply doing my duty in telling you of them. If you forget, go to the books on astronomy and refresh your memory. But do not persuade yourself that the preliminaries are now finished. You are going to think that my story of the moon resembles Walter Scott’s novels in the length of 13its introduction; but if, in the end, I can interest you half as much as he finally interests his readers I shall thank the stars for my good fortune.

“The next thing that I must try to explain,” I continued, “is the cause of the moon’s phases, or her continual changes of form. You know that the New Moon is shaped like a thin crescent, and always appears in the west immediately after sundown, with the convex side facing the setting sun. The moon at First Quarter is a half circle and is visible in the southern part of the sky just after sunset. The Full Moon, which we have at present, is a complete round disk, and is always seen directly opposite to the place of the sun, so that she rises when the sun sets. The moon at last quarter is again a half circle, and appears on the meridian in the south at sunrise. The waning moon is like the new moon, crescent-shaped, but the convexity of the bow faces the rising sun, and she is visible only in the morning sky just as dawn begins. To explain the reasons for these changes of shape, which the moon regularly undergoes every month, I must ask you to go indoors and examine a little diagram which I have made.”

“Oh!” said my companion, “it is too bad to abandon this charming spectacle, illuminated by rays so fascinating, for the sake of looking at mathematical lines drawn on paper! But I suppose 14that this is one of the sacrifices demanded by your inexorable science, and must be made.”

“Yes,” I said, “but if science sometimes demands sacrifices, at least she always rewards them most generously.”

When we had returned to the house I placed upon the drawing-room table this diagram.

Phases and Rotation of the Moon.

As I spread it out, my companion, after a regretful glance through the open door at the silvery lawn, on which the moon, having cleared the obstructing branches of the bordering trees, was now pouring down the full splendor of her rays, 15put her elbows on the table to follow my explanation.

“The globe, half bright and half black, in the center,” I said, “represents the earth. The large circle surrounding the earth we will call the moon’s orbit, which she traverses once every month. The smaller globe, also half white and half black, shown in four successive positions in the orbit, is the moon. Suppose the sun to be away off here on the left. It illuminates the earth and the moon only on the side turned toward it. The opposite side of both is buried in night. Now, let us begin with the moon at the point A. She is then between the earth and the sun, the bright side being necessarily toward the sun and the dark side toward the earth. In that position we do not see the moon at all from the earth, unless she happens to come so exactly in a line with the sun as to cover the latter, in which event we have an eclipse of the sun. Now, suppose the moon to move in her orbit toward B. In a little more than seven days she will arrive at B. In the meantime, while moving away from the position of the sun, she begins to present a part of her illuminated hemisphere toward the earth. This part appears in the form of a sickle, or crescent, which grows gradually broader, until, at B, it has grown to a half circle. In other words, when the moon is in the position B we on 16the earth see one half of her illuminated surface. This phase is called First Quarter. The narrow crescent, which appears as soon as the moon begins to move from A toward B, is the New Moon. As the moon continues on from B toward C, more and more of her illuminated half is visible from the earth, and when she arrives at C, just opposite to the position of the sun, she becomes a Full Moon. We then see, as occurs to-night, the whole of that face of the moon which is presented sunward. The upper half of the diagram shows how the moon moves from the position of Full Moon back again to New Moon, or conjunction with the sun. During this latter part of her course the moon rises later and later every night, until, when she assumes the form of a waning crescent, she is visible only in the morning sky just before sunrise.[1]

“Now, there is another interesting thing shown by this diagram,” I continued—but my companion, who had followed my explanations thus far with flattering attention, here suddenly ran to the door exclaiming:

“For mercy’s sake, what is happening to the moon?”

1.  

The Moon’s Path with Respect to the Sun and the Earth.

It may be well to add to what is said in the text about the orbit of the moon, that, while the moon does perform a revolution around the earth once a month, yet her orbit is drawn out, by the common motion of both earth and moon around the sun, into a long curve, whose radius is continually changing, but which is always concave toward the sun. This is illustrated in the accompanying diagram. Suppose we start with the earth at A. The moon is then between the sun and the earth, or in the phase of New Moon. The earth’s orbit at this point is more curved than the moon’s, and the earth is moving relatively faster than the moon. At B (First Quarter) the earth is directly ahead of the moon. But now the moon’s orbit becomes more curved than the earth’s and it begins to overtake the earth. At C (Full Moon) the moon has come up even with the earth, but on the opposite side from the sun. From that point to D (Last Quarter) the moon gains upon the earth until she is directly ahead of it. Then, from D to E (New Moon, once more) the earth gains until the two bodies are in the same relative positions which they occupied at A. Throughout the entire lunation, however, notwithstanding the changes which the shape of the moon’s orbit undergoes, the latter is constantly concave toward the sun. This shows that the sun’s attraction is really the governing force, and that the attraction of the earth simply serves to vary the form of the moon’s path, and cause it to move in a virtual ellipse with the earth for its focus.

17I glanced over her shoulder, and saw a smudgy scallop in the moon’s edge.

“Really,” I said, “I am ashamed of myself. There is an eclipse of the moon to-night, and I had positively forgotten it! What you see is the shadow of the earth, which has the form of a long 18cone stretching away more than eight hundred thousand miles into space, and whenever our satellite at the time of Full Moon gets nearly in a direct line with the earth and the sun, it passes through that shadow and undergoes an eclipse. That is what is happening at the present moment.”

“And the shadow has a round form because the earth is round, I suppose.”

“Certainly; the shadow of a globe must have a circular outline. But the shadow of the earth, although it finally diminishes to a point, is, at the moon’s distance, still about 5,700 miles in diameter, or more than two and a half times the diameter of the moon. In consequence of the motion of the earth in its orbit around the sun, its shadow constantly moves eastward, like a great pencil of darkness sweeping straight across the heavens, but invisible to us except when the moon, traveling eastward faster than the shadow, overtakes and passes through it. This does not by any means happen at every full moon, because, for a reason which I shall explain presently, the moon usually passes either above or below the shadow of the earth, and thus escapes an eclipse. When an eclipse does occur it lasts a long time because the shadow is moving in the same direction as the moon. The moon must pass entirely through it before the eclipse ends. On this occasion 19the moon will be in the shadow more than three hours, and during an hour and a half she will be totally immersed. We shall have plenty of time, then, to observe the phenomenon, and after you have satisfied your curiosity a little by watching the slow advance of the shadow movement across the moon, we can return to our diagram and finish its explanation before the eclipse becomes total.”

Accordingly, after having watched the progress of the eclipse for half an hour, during which time the shadow began perceptibly to diminish the moonlight in the park, we returned to the lamplight and the diagram on the table.

“I was saying,” I resumed, “that another interesting thing in addition to the cause of the moon’s changing phases is represented here. You observe that a little cross stands on each of the four circles representing the moon, and that, in every case, the cross is in the center of that side of the moon which faces the earth. In fact the position of the cross upon the moon is fixed and invariable, and it always points toward the earth because the moon makes exactly one rotation on her axis in the course of one revolution around her orbit, or, as it is often called, one lunation. We know that this is so because we always see the same features of the lunar surface, no matter where the moon may be situated. This 20is true although, in consequence of the phases, we cannot see the whole face of the moon except when she is full. But whether it is the New Moon, or First Quarter, or Full Moon, or Last Quarter, or Old Moon, that we look at, the mountains and plains visible are identically the same. If the moon did not turn once on her axis in going once around the earth we would see all of her sides in succession, although only at Full Moon could we see an entire hemisphere illuminated by the sun. At Old and New Moon the side presented to the earth would be just the opposite to that presented at Full Moon. At Last Quarter the side facing the earth would be the opposite to that facing the earth at First Quarter.”

“But, tell me,” said my friend, “how did the moon ever come to so humiliating a pass that she must be forever turning on her heel to face the earth?”

“That,” I replied, “is a result of the same forces which originally separated her from the earth and gradually pushed her off to her present distance. In a word it is due to ‘tidal friction.’ Before the moon had solidified, the attraction of the earth raised huge tides in her molten mass. These tides acted on the rotating moon like brakes on a wheel, and at length they slowed down her rotation until its period became identical with 21that of her revolution around the earth. For the mathematical calculations on which all this is based you must go to Professor Darwin’s book on ‘The Tides,’ or some similar technical treatise; but I imagine you will never do that.”

“Not just at present, I assure you. I do not know what unexpected ambition for the acquirement of scientific knowledge may arise after I have seen those wonders that you have promised to show me in the moon, but, for the moment, I am content to accept your statement of the simple fact.”

“Good!” I replied. “And now, perhaps, you will have the patience to listen to an explanation of a very important relation which exists between the moon and the earth. We are led to it by what I have just said concerning tides. You know, of course that the tides in the oceans are due principally to the attraction of the moon. The sun also raises tides in the seas, but the moon, being so much nearer than the sun, is the chief agent in producing them. Sometimes the moon and the sun act together; at other times they pull in different directions. At Full Moon and at New Moon they pull together, because then they are either on opposite sides of the earth, or both on the same side. At such times we have the highest tides in all our seaports. That occurs about once every fortnight. But when the moon is at 22either First or Last Quarter, as you will perceive by looking at the diagram, her position, as seen from the earth, is at a right angle with a line drawn to the sun. Then the sun raises tides in one direction and the moon in another direction. The result is that at such periods the tides are lowest. An exact knowledge of these things is very important for mariners because there are harbors whose channels can be navigated by large ships only when the tides are high. Tables predicting the times and heights of the tides have been prepared for all the principal seaports of the world. In truth, the moon renders important services to the inhabitants of the earth, not merely in supplying them with a certain amount of light in the absence of the sun, but also in enabling them to navigate waters which are too shallow for ships except when deepened by the tide. The tides also, in many cases, serve to scour out channels and keep them open.”

“Really, I am quite interested, and the more so because I find the moon, like a dutiful daughter, trying to be of some use to her mother. But have I not heard that the tides occur on both sides of the earth at once, and not simply on the side where the moon happens to be at the time? Please tell me how that can be so?”

“A complete reply to your question would 23carry us into the realm of mathematical physics, but perhaps I can throw a little light upon the matter with the aid of this second diagram.

The Moon and the Tides.

“The eclipse is not yet total,” I continued, glancing out of the door, “and we can finish our explanation before it becomes so. Have the kindness, then, to look at the diagram. Suppose E to be the center of the earth, and M the center of the moon. The protuberant portions of the earth C A D and D B C represent the waters of the ocean pulled away from the surface of the earth, if I may so describe it, by the moon’s attraction. You are probably aware that the attraction of gravitation varies with the distance of the attracting body. The distance from the center of the earth to the center of the moon is about 239,000 miles. But the earth being nearly 8,000 miles in diameter, the surface of the ocean at A is about 4,000 miles nearer to the moon than is the center of the earth E. It follows that the force of the moon’s attraction is greater at A than at E. If the water of the ocean were a fixed, solid part 24of the earth there would be no perceptible effect resulting from this difference in the amount of the moon’s attraction. But since the water is free to move, to a certain extent, it yields to the attraction, and is drawn up a little toward the moon. At the same time it is, in effect, drawn away from C and D. The consequence is the production of a tide on the side facing the moon.

“Now, for the other tide, produced at the same time on that side of the earth which is turned away from the moon. The point B is about 4,000 miles farther from the moon than E; consequently the moon’s attractive force is less at B than at E. From this it results that the body of the earth is more forcibly attracted by the moon than is the water at B. The earth therefore tends to move away from the water at that point, and another tidal protuberance is produced, with its highest part at B. I should add that while the water of the ocean is, to a certain degree, free to respond to these differences of attraction, the earth itself, being solid, can only move as a single body, and, mathematically, we may regard it as if its entire mass were concentrated at the center E. Please remember, however, that this explanation is only elementary, only intended as a graphic representation of the tides, and not as a mathematical demonstration of the way they are produced. Such a demonstration 25would only be suited to one of the technical books that you have not found as interesting as—some other branches of literature.

“There is just one other thing to which I must ask your attention, and then we shall return to the moon herself and the phenomena of the eclipse now in progress. You will notice in the diagram, that two arrows show the direction in which the earth is continually rotating on its axis, and that a dotted curve, terminating with an arrow point, indicates the course of the moon in her orbit surrounding the earth. The rotation of the earth is so much more rapid than the motion of the moon that the points A and B are carried out of the line drawn from the center of the moon to the center of the earth, in the direction of the arrows. From this it follows that the tides are never directly under the moon, or exactly opposite to her, but sweep in great waves round the globe. The tides produced by the attraction of the sun are only about two fifths as high as those caused by the moon. As I have already explained they are sometimes superposed upon the lunar tides—at New and at Full Moon—and sometimes they are situated at right angles to the lunar tides—at First and Last Quarters.”

“But the eclipse!” interrupted my friend, whose attention had evidently begun to wander. “I think the totality of which you spoke must be 26at hand, for notice how dark the park has become, and the fireflies are so brilliant under the trees.”

The total phase of the eclipse was, indeed, beginning, and we stepped out on the lawn before the door to watch it. The moon had now passed entirely within the earth’s shadow, but although her light was almost completely obscured as far as its power to illuminate the landscape was concerned, still the face of the moon was dimly visible, as if concealed behind a thick veil. Certain parts of it had a coppery color, producing a very weird effect.

“Dear me!” exclaimed my companion, “I did not think it would look like that! I naïvely supposed that one could not see the eclipsed moon at all, but that she either disappeared or was turned into a kind of black circle in the heavens. And what a strange color she has! Positively it fills me with awe.”

“It is very rare,” I said, “for the moon to become invisible during an eclipse. That can only occur when the earth is enveloped in clouds.”

“Indeed, and what have the clouds to do with it? If the solid body of the earth cannot cast a shadow dense enough to hide the moon, I should not expect things so evanescent as clouds to be more effective.”

“It is all owing to the earth’s atmosphere,” I 27replied. “If our globe were not surrounded with a shell of air the moon would always be totally invisible when eclipsed. But the atmosphere acts like a lens of glass inclosing the earth; that is to say, it refracts, or bends the rays of sunlight around the edge of the earth on all sides, and throws a portion of them even into the middle of the shadow, at the moon’s distance. It is these refracted rays which cause the singular illumination that you perceive on the moon. But when, as occurs only occasionally, all that part of the atmosphere which surrounds the earth along the edge visible from the moon is filled with clouds, the air can no longer transmit the refracted rays, and then, no light being sent into the shadow, a ‘dark eclipse,’ as astronomers call it, results. An eclipse of the sun is a very different thing. That is caused not by a shadow but by the opaque globe of the moon passing between the earth and the solar orb. When this occurs the sun is completely hidden behind the moon, and only its corona, which projects beyond the moon on all sides, is visible.”

“Indeed! I supposed that all eclipses were very much the same thing.”

“By no means. An eclipse of the sun is an event of extreme importance to astronomers, while an eclipse of the moon possesses comparatively little scientific interest.”

28“I do not see why that should be so.”

“It is so, for the reason that when the sun is eclipsed, as I have just told you, the solar corona, which cannot be seen at any other time owing to the overpowering brilliance of the solar orb, becomes plainly visible, and by studying the form and other particulars of the corona astronomers are able to draw most important conclusions concerning the constitution of the sun, the mechanism of its radiation, and its effects upon the earth. During an eclipse of the moon, on the other hand, practically nothing new is revealed, and, accordingly, astronomers pay comparatively little attention to such phenomena. Lunar eclipses, however, possess a certain importance, because by predicting the times of their occurrence and then comparing the predictions with the events, something is learned about the motions of the moon. I should add that recently eclipses of the moon have been carefully watched by a few astronomers, notably by Prof. William H. Pickering, because of peculiar effects which seem to be produced at certain points on the moon by the chill which the shadow casts upon her surface. There are also interesting observations to be made concerning the reflection of heat from the moon during an eclipse. But, upon the whole, a lunar eclipse is mainly interesting as a curious spectacle, and as a test of the correctness 29of astronomical calculations of the motions of the heavenly bodies.

“I may add, however, that eclipses of the moon have been of some use to historians in fixing the dates of important occurrences thousands of years ago. This is possible because astronomers can by calculation ascertain the times of eclipses in the past as well as in the future. Perhaps the most interesting of all instances of this kind is that which relates to the date of the beginning of the Christian era. This has been fixed by means of an eclipse of the moon mentioned by the ancients as having happened the night before the death of Herod, king of the Jews.”

“It seems to me,” said my friend, “that the faint light on the moon’s face is continually changing. It does not appear constantly to have the same tint. While we have been standing here, I have noticed that some parts have grown darker and others lighter, and that the red color on the right has become a little more intense.”

“Yes, and that, too, is no doubt caused by the earth’s atmosphere. While the eclipse lasts, the earth is rapidly rotating, and consequently new parts of the atmosphere are continually brought to the edge where their refractive effects come into play. If the atmosphere at the edge of the earth is a little more or a little less dense its refraction varies proportionally. Then, changes 30in the relative clearness or cloudiness of the air are taking place all the time, and these are reflected in the illumination on the moon.”

“It seems to me, then, that the earth would present a very remarkable spectacle if we were now on the moon looking at it.”

“Surely it would. Seen from the moon the earth appears several times larger than the sun. For the people of the moon, if we imagine them to exist, an eclipse of the sun is now in progress. For them the earth now occupies the same relative position which the moon occupies for us just before it appears in the west as New Moon. They cannot see it except in silhouette as it passes over the sun. More than an hour ago, if they were watching (and if they exist, and are intelligent beings we may be sure that they were on the alert), they suddenly perceived a black round-edged notch in the side of the sun. Instead of being more or less cloudlike and indefinite in outline, like the shadow of the earth on the moon, this notch appeared to them perfectly black and smooth. At a glance, they saw that the body producing it was much larger than the sun. As the sun’s disk was gradually hidden behind the earth the shadow of the latter fell over them, until the sun was wholly concealed. Then—and this is true at the present moment—they perceived that the huge disk of the earth was ringed with 31light, probably of a reddish tinge. This light, as I have already indicated, is that which the atmosphere refracts around the edge of the earth.”

“It must be truly a magnificent sight,” said my companion.

“Yes, and it is doubtless rendered far more magnificent by the other phenomena which our people at the moon have before their eyes. In consequence of the virtual absence of air there, an observer on the moon would see all the stars, even in full daylight, blazing in a jet black sky. The brilliance of the stars and of the Milky Way would hardly be increased by the hiding of the sun, but probably the long silvery streamers of the solar corona would glow perceptibly brighter when seen projecting out on each side of the enormous disk of the earth.”

“But is it true that the moon has no air?”

“Very, very little, and what little she has is probably different in composition from our atmosphere. Some observations seem to indicate that there is a very rare atmosphere on the moon, but to us it would seem a perfect vacuum. We could not breathe there at all.”

“How then do those intelligent inhabitants, whom you have pictured for me watching the earth at this moment, manage to survive?”

“Ah, I did not say that there actually are inhabitants in the moon. I only imagined them 32to exist for the sake of showing how this eclipse would appear seen from the moon. Still, we cannot be absolutely sure that there are no inhabitants on the moon. Even without air like ours it is conceivable that beings of some kind, and intelligent beings, too, might exist there. However, astronomers have never yet been able to discover evidence of their presence. Lately, indications have been found of the probable existence of vegetation on the moon, but I shall speak of that later, when with the aid of the series of lunar pictures made at the Yerkes observatory we try to make a ‘photographic journey’ in the moon.”

“But tell me, has the moon always been so airless?”

“That is another unsettled question. Some astronomers have thought that formerly, ages ago, the moon possessed a much more dense atmosphere than she has at present. Having separated from the earth, in the way I have described, it is natural to suppose that at first she may have had an atmosphere very like ours. The explanation of its disappearance which was once generally accepted was that it had been absorbed into the lunar rocks, as the globe of the moon cooled off. But recent progress in our knowledge of the nature of the gases composing the atmosphere has led to a different explanation. This assumes that nearly all of the moon’s atmosphere has 33flown away from her because the lunar globe does not possess sufficient gravitating force or attraction to retain it. If the mass of the earth were no greater than that of the moon, our atmosphere also would probably have escaped by flying off into space.”

“But how, and why, do these gases fly away?”

“They do it by virtue of what physicists call their molecular velocity. A gas, of whatever kind, is a mass of molecules which are in continual vibration, moving in all directions among one another with very great velocities. These velocities have been measured, and it has been found that the molecules of nitrogen, one of the components of the air, move at the rate of two miles in a second. The velocity of the molecules of oxygen is a little less; that of the molecules of hydrogen is very great, nearly seven and a half miles in a second! Now, it is also known that the attraction of the earth is sufficient to retain permanently upon its surface all moving particles or molecules which have a velocity less than seven miles in a second, while the attraction of the moon only suffices to retain those whose velocities fall under a mile and a half in a second. So you perceive that all of the gases I have named would soon escape from the moon, even if they were present upon it at the beginning of its history.

“I must also remind you that there is no 34water upon the moon, at least not in the form of rivers, oceans, lakes, ponds, or even of clouds. But Professor Pickering has recently noted certain appearances which may be due to the formation of a kind of hoar frost. If there were once oceans upon the moon, as the great plains, called maria, or seas, in the lunar charts, seem to indicate, they, too, have escaped by evaporation. The velocity of the molecules of water vapor is two and a half miles per second, a mile greater than the ‘critical velocity’ which the attraction of the moon would be able to control.”

“But,” interrupted my companion, “I am puzzled to understand how you know so much about the power of the moon to hold things.”

“It is really quite simple,” I replied. “The attraction of gravitation, which is a property belonging to all known bodies, is measured by the mass, or amount of matter, in a body. It also varies with the distance between the attracting and attracted bodies. We know, by means which I shall not attempt to describe here, the mass both of the earth and of the moon. We also know the size of both of these bodies. They attract objects as if their entire masses were concentrated at their centers. A body of a certain kind and size at the surface of the earth weighs just one pound. If the earth were reduced to half its actual diameter, while retaining the same mass or amount 35of matter, more closely packed together, the body which now weighs one pound would then weigh four pounds, because it would be twice as near to the center of the earth as before, and the attraction of gravitation varies according to the square of the distance from the center. As the distance diminishes the force increases. The square of two is four, therefore the body would be attracted with four times the force which it experiences at present. Now, the moon is not only much smaller than the earth, but its average density, or the closeness with which the molecules of its rocks are packed together, is less. It results from these facts that the ratio of the entire mass of the moon is to that of the earth as one to eighty-one. Hence the inherent power of the moon to attract bodies is less than one-eightieth as great as the earth’s. If the diameter of the moon were the same as that of the earth, a body weighing one pound on the earth would weigh only one eighty-oneth part of a pound on the moon. But the diameter of the moon is less than one quarter as great as that of the earth. It follows that bodies on the moon are almost four times (more accurately about 3.66 times) nearer to the center of attraction. This fact must be taken into account in calculating the force of gravity on the moon’s surface. As far as the mass of the moon is concerned, bodies on her surface experience less than 36one-eightieth of the attractive force which the earth exercises upon bodies on its surface, but this is so far counterbalanced by their greater nearness to the center, that the actual attraction upon them is about one sixth of that which they would experience on the earth.”

“Thank you,” said my companion dryly, “your explanation appears to me to be very scientific.”

“Not by any means as scientific as it might be, or as it ought to be,” I replied, laughing. “But, really, if you wish to understand these things you should not be too much afraid of the bugbear ‘science.’ Science makes the world go nowadays, and everybody ought to know a little about it, just as everybody with any pretensions to education a hundred years ago had to learn more or less Greek and Latin. But let me continue a little farther. Since the force of attraction on the moon is only one sixth as great as it is on the earth, the weight of all bodies is in the same proportion. Pardon me if I guess at your weight; it is, perhaps, 120 pounds. Very well, translated to the moon you would weigh only 20 pounds.”

“Dear me, then skipping the rope may be the favorite pastime of middle-aged ladies on the moon.”

“And throwing somersaults that of gray-haired 37lunar gentlemen. Let me tell you of one very interesting consequence of the small force of the moon’s gravity, which affects not merely the weight of bodies but the flight of projectiles, and, indeed, all motions of every kind. You will see, when we come to the photographs, that some of the lunar volcanoes are of a magnitude almost incredible. This is doubtless due to the fact that the ejections from volcanic craters there were able, with no greater expenditure of explosive force, to attain an elevation six times that which they would attain if thrown from a volcano on the earth. During the eruption of Vesuvius in April, 1906, the column of smoke, steam, and cinders from its crater reached, according to the measures of Professor Matteucci, a maximum height of about eight miles. On the moon the same force would have blown these things almost fifty miles high! It is not difficult, in view of such facts, to see how the giant volcanic craters and mountain rings of the moon were formed.”

In the meantime the eclipse continued, and, having tired of watching it, we returned to the drawing-room.

“When shall we see these famous photographs and begin our imaginary journey in the moon?” my companion asked.

“To-morrow,” I replied. “But I shall have to demand one more brief exercise of your patience 38this evening, while I finish with this subject of eclipses.”

“Then we are not through yet?”

“Not quite, for I have not yet told you why the moon is not eclipsed every time she approaches the earth’s shadow, and why she does not eclipse the sun once every month at the time of New Moon.”

“Well, tell me then, and I promise to be as interested as possible; only please don’t talk any more mathematics than is absolutely necessary.”

“Very well, I’ll spare your attention as much as possible. To begin with the eclipses of the moon: The reason why they are not of regular monthly occurrence is simply because the orbit of the moon is a little inclined, about 5¼°, to the orbit of the earth. Even then there would be an eclipse once every month if the orbit of the moon were fixed in space, and if the point where that orbit crosses the plane of the earth’s orbit were always directly opposite to the sun. But instead of being fixed in position the orbit of the moon has a curious motion of revolution of its own. This causes the two opposite points, where it crosses the plane of the earth’s orbit, and which are called the moon’s ‘nodes,’ to move continually onward in a direction opposite to that in which the moon revolves, but much more slowly. A period of about nineteen years is required for 39the moon’s nodes to complete a revolution. The consequence is that the nodes are not always in line with the earth and the sun, and except when they are nearly in line no eclipse can occur. To enter into a complete explanation of this would require more ‘mathematics’ than you would like, but what I have said may at least serve to give you an idea of the reason why eclipses are comparatively of rare occurrence.”

“I think I understand the reason sufficiently. But what a complicated affair you astronomers make of what, it seems to me, should really be a very simple thing.”

“It is like a sewing machine,” I replied, “which seems very simple when you see it running smoothly, and do not trouble yourself about all the various parts of its mechanism. But if you undertake to explain to yourself, or to make clear to another person, exactly how the machine works, you find that your attention is rather severely taxed, and that the apparent simplicity is based upon no little complexity of construction and interaction of parts. You will have understood from what I have said, that the reason why the moon does not eclipse the sun once every month is based upon the same fact, namely, the inclination of the moon’s orbit to the plane of the orbit of the earth; and that when she does eclipse the sun her nodes must be somewhere near a line 40drawn from the earth to the sun. There is one broad difference between an eclipse of the moon and an eclipse of the sun which I have not yet mentioned. This arises from the fact that the moon being so much smaller than the earth, her shadow, when she hides the sun, does not cover the entire earth, as the earth’s shadow covers the whole moon, but comes almost to a point before reaching the earth. The average length of the moon’s shadow is only 232,150 miles, 6,690 miles less than the average distance between the moon and the earth. But since, in consequence of the eccentricity of her orbit, the moon’s distance is continually varying, the length of her shadow also varies to the extent of about 4,000 miles each way. Thus it may be as short as 228,300 miles, or as long as 236,050 miles. When the greatest length of the moon’s shadow coincides with her least distance from the earth (221,600 miles), her shadow extends more than 18,000 miles beyond the earth. Under such circumstances its diameter at the surface of the earth is about 167 miles. That is the greatest diameter that the shadow of the moon can have at its intersection with the earth. Ordinarily, when it reaches the earth at all, its diameter is less than 100 miles, and often very much less. If the earth and the moon were motionless during an eclipse, her shadow would form a round, dark spot on the earth, and all observers 41within the circumference of that spot would behold the sun totally eclipsed. But, in consequence both of the motion of the moon in her orbit, and the rotation of the earth on its axis, the shadow spot moves swiftly in an easterly direction over the earth’s surface, forming what is called the path of the eclipse. The astronomer calculates beforehand across what parts of the earth the path will lie, and selects his points of observation accordingly.

“When the length of the shadow is too small to reach the earth, the moon appears projected against the sun as a round black disk, hiding the center of the solar orb, but leaving a brilliant ring all around. Such phenomena are called annular eclipses. There are about three annular eclipses for every two total ones. When the moon, as often occurs, does not traverse the center of the sun’s disk, as seen from any part of the earth, a partial eclipse is the result. This means that only a portion of the sun is hidden by the moon. Even a total eclipse appears as a partial one to observers who are not placed within the limits of the shadow path.”

“But it seems to me,” said my friend, “you have hedged round your eclipses with so many difficulties, what with the tip of the moon’s orbit, and what with the shortness of her shadow, that they must be very few in number. Yet I 42often hear of an eclipse, although I have never seen one before to-night.”

“They are not so rare as you might suppose,” I replied. “It is not necessary, in order that an eclipse, either partial, or total, or annular, may occur, that the moon’s nodes be in a direct line with the centers of the sun and the earth. The moon may be a few degrees out of line, and yet either pass into the earth’s shadow or be seen crossing the sun from one point or another on the earth. There are about 70 eclipses in every eighteen years, 41 of the sun and 29 of the moon, but the number varies a little. Generally there can be no more than two eclipses of the moon in any one year, but it is possible for three to occur. The greatest number of solar eclipses in a year is five, but this is very rare, the usual number being two. In fact, there must be at least two solar eclipses in a year, but there are many years which have no eclipses of the moon at all. And now, I think I have said all that is necessary about eclipses, and we arrive very opportunely at the end of the discourse, for behold the moon is passing out of the shadow, and her light begins once more to glow in the park.”

This was indeed the case. Going to the door, we saw the earth’s shadow slowly withdrawing from the face of the moon, while the landscape was brightening under her returning rays. For 43a few minutes we watched, in silence, the brilliant spectacle. Then my companion turned to me.

“Would you know my whole thought?” she asked. “I fear that I cannot recall many of the scientific facts you have just been telling me, but for them I can go back, at need, to the books. Yet one thing I feel that I have certainly gained. It is a sense of friendly, companionable interest in the moon. Henceforth she will be more to me than she ever was before. I shall always be conscious, when looking at her face, that she is the offspring of the earth, and that there exists between these two bodies an intimacy that I had never imagined possible. For me your tides and your eclipses seem an inarticulate language, a caressing exchange of communications between these two celestial beings of one blood. To my mind they are, in a certain sense, personalities, and, as a creature of the earth, I feel now my relationship to the moon.”

“Very good,” I replied. “All science and all forms of knowledge are rooted in the imagination. To-morrow we shall begin with the photographs, and many most interesting things that I have not yet mentioned will then naturally present themselves before us.”

“Good night then,” said my companion, “and to-morrow I shall count upon the delights of a photographic journey in the moon.”

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books.

This book is part of the public domain. Garrett Putman Serviss (2021). The Moon: A Popular Treatise. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66510/pg66510-images.html

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.