Amador ledger., 1906-12-21
BIRTH OF THE MOON
LUNA WAS FLUNG OUT OF THE EARTH
INTO SPACE

she Once FILLED, Perhaps, the Great
Basin Now Occupied by the Pacific
Ocean-Latest Ideas of Science as to
Conditions on Our Satellite.
Millions of years ago the earth was
not the land bound, sea swept globe
SO familiar to us, but liquid mass on
which fioated crust some thirty-five
miles thick. At that period, says the
Strand Magazine, it turned on its axis
at a constantly increasing speed that
finally shortened the day to three hours.
When that terrific velocity was OBJ
tanned 5000 cubic million miles of mat
centrifugal force, and our moon was
born. The cleaving of so large body
must have left some scar on the earth's
surface. 1t has accordingly been sug
gested that the great basin now occu-
pied by the Pacific ocean was once
filled by what is now the moon.
Our moon has the distinction of be-
ing the largest of all planetary sat
ellites-so large, indeed, that to the
Inhabitants Of Mars it must appear
with the earth as wonderfully beau
tiful twin planet.
Because the moon rotates ON its axis
in exactly the same time that it re-
wolves around the earth we are des-
tined to see little more than one hemi-
sphere. So slow is this rotation that
the lunar day Is equal to fifteen of our
days. For half month the moon is
exposed to the fierce heat of the sun;
for half a month it spins through space
In the densest gloom.
Smaller in mass than the earth is,
the moons attraction for bodies must
be correspondingly less. A good ter
restrial athlete could cover about 120
feet on the moon in a running broad
jump, and leaping over barn would
be a very commonplace feat. A man
in the moon could carry six times as
much and run six times as fast as he
could on the earth.
Although separated from us by a
distance that at times reaches 253, 900
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miles, we know more of the physical
formation of the single pallid face that
the moon ever turns toward us than
wetknow of certain parts of Asia and
the heart of Africa. Powerful tele-
scopes have brought our satellite with
in distance of forty miles of the
earth. Physicists have automatically
weighed it and fixed its mass at one
eighth of the earth, or 73,000,O00,0
600 tons.
The moon presents aspects without
any terrestrial parallel. Rent by fires
long since dead, its honeycombed
crust seems like a great globe of chill
ed Stag. Craters are not uncommon on
the earth, but in number, size and
structure they bear for the most part
little resemblance to those of the moon
A lunar crater is not the mouth Of a
volcano having a diameter of few
hundred feet, but great circular plain
twenty, fifty, even a hundred miles
in diameter, surrounded by precipice
rising to a height of 5000 or 10000
feet, with a central hill or two about
half as high.
Water cannot possibly exist as a
liquid, for the temperature of the
moons surface during the long lunar
night is probably not far from AGO
degrees below the zero mark Of a
Fahrenheit thermometer, and the at
mospheric pressure is so low that a
gas under pressure would solidify as
it escaped. Ice and snow are the
forms, then, which lunar water must
assume
Because of the present paucity Of
water the moons atmosphere is so ex-
ceedingly rare that startling effects
are produced. Perhaps the most strik-
ing is that of the sunrise. Dawn and
the soft golden glow that ushers in
terrestrial day there cannot be. The
sun leaps from the horizon flaming
sickle, and the loftier peaks imme-
diately flash into light.
There Is no azure sky to relieve the
monotonous effects of inky black shad-
ows and dazzling white expanses. The
sun CLEANS in fierce splendor, with no
clouds to diffuSe its binding light.
All day long it Is accompanied by the
weird zodiacal light that we behold at
rare intervals.
Even in midday the heavens are
pitch black, so that, despite the sun
light, the stars and planets gleam
with brightness that they never ex-
hibit to us even on the clearest Of
moonless nights at sea. They shine
steadily, too, for it is the earth's at
mosphere that causes them to twinkle
to our eyes.
In the line of sight it is impossible
to estimate distances, for there is no
such phenomenon as aerial perspec-
tive. Objects are seen only when the
rays Of the sun strike them.
At times there may be observed
spots which darken after sunrise and
gradually disappear toward sunset.
They cannot be caused by shadows,
for shadows would be least visible
when the sun is directly overhead.
They appear most quickly at the
equator and invade the higher alti-
tudes after a lapse of few days. In
the polar regions they have never been
seen. What are they? Organic life
resembling vegetation, answers Pro
fessor Pickering of Harvard univer-
sity, vegetation that f1ourishes luxuri-
antly while the sun shines and withers
at night.
A single day, it may be urged, is
not sufficiently long for the develop
ment and decay of vegetation, but six
teen hours on the moon is little more
than half an hour on the earth; q day