Elaine Scott - Our Moon: New Discoveries About Earth’s Closest Companion

Clarion Books

3 Park Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Copyright 2015 by Elaine Scott

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

Front cover: Enhanced image of the moon and starry sky. (Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock)

Cover design by Opal Roengchai

All images not otherwise credited are in the public domain.

Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Scott, Elaine, 1940 author.

Our moon : new discoveries about Earths closest companion / Elaine Scott.

pages cm.

Summary: Full of captivating, kid-friendly information, Our Moon covers everything from the newest theories on how the moon formed, to the recent, startling discovery of water on its surface and the very real possibility of future moon colonies. Illustrated with full-color photographs and packed with fun facts, this is the most complete and up-to-date book available on the moon. Includes glossary, bibliography, and indexProvided by publisher.

Audience: Ages 912.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-547-48394-8 (hardcover)

1. Space flight to the moonJuvenile literature. 2. MoonJuvenile literature. 3. MoonExplorationJuvenile literature. 4. Earth (Planet)Juvenile literature. I. Title.

TL799.M6S26 2015

523.3dc23

2015006855

eISBN 978-0-544-75058-6
v1.0116

Title page image: A supermoon photographed on July 18, 2008. Supermoons occur when the moon is full and its orbit carries it closest to Earth, causing it to appear bigger and brighter than ever in the night sky. The scientific term for this close approach is perigee. The moons orbit around Earth varies from an average distance of 225,623 miles at perigee to an average of 252,088 miles from Earth at its farthest point, or apogee. (NASA/Sean Smith)

For my daughter, Susan, whom I love to the moon and back

A full moon lightens the darkness of the night. (Jon Sullivan)

O N J ULY 20, 1969, astronaut Michael Mike Collins sat at the controls of Columbia, the space vehicle that had carried him and his two fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong (19302012) and Edwin Buzz Aldrin (1930) to the moon. Neil and Buzz had left Columbia and were already on the moon, making their first explorations of its strange and powdery surface. After much serious communication between Mission Control in Houston, Texas, and the history-making astronauts of Apollo 11, a voice from Houston again crackled into Mikes headset.

Mission Control: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, theres one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4,000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot, since he is always standing on his hind feet inthe shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not recorded.

Collins: Okay. Well keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.

Chang-o, now more commonly known as Change, the Chinese moon goddess. (Library of Congress)

Of course, that communication was a joke. The mission was going well, and there was time for a little fun. No one thought there was a Chinese princess or a big rabbit on the moon. Not in 1969. But four thousand years before, in ancient China, when people looked at the full moon and saw the dark markings on its surface, they created many stories to explain them, including the one about Chang-o.

Other ancient cultures created stories about those dark spots on the moon too. One tale sees the man in the moon as a biblical figure. The story in the Bible says Cain killed his brother Abel while they lived in Eden with their parents, Adam and Eve. As punishment for the crime, Cain was banished from his home to a land east of Eden. A legend developed that the land east of Eden was the moon and that Cain was sent there to live, doomed to orbit Earth forever, gazing at the planet he could no longer inhabit because of his terrible crime.

Stonehenge, the mysterious ring of stones in Wiltshire, England, may have been used as a type of observatory by people living more than 4,500 years ago. (Bernard Gagnon)

These stories, passed from generation to generation over thousands of years, tell us that the moon has fascinated humans from the beginning of our history. Not only did our ancestors tell stories and sing songs about the glowing disk that moved across the sky each night; some of their civilizations even worshiped the moon, building temples and pyramids in its honor. Others took a scientific interest and created monuments in an attempt to study and measure the moons phasesthe cycle in which it appears to change shape in the night sky. Many scientists believe that Stonehenge, the curious ring of stones on Salisbury Plain in England that was built around 2500 B.C., was a kind of observatory that helped ancient people mark the phases of the sun and the midsummer and midwinter solstices. Thousands of years later, around A.D. 1000, the Anasazi people of the American Southwest carved astronomical markings that measured the movements of the sun and moon into Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. These sitesand many moreare open to the public, and its fun to visit them, think about the past, and marvel at our ancestors efforts to learn more about the mysteries of the moon.

Quick Moon Facts

diameter: approximately 2,160 miles/3,476 km

circumference at equator: 6,783.5 miles/10,917 km

The moon is the fifth largest planetary satellite in our solar system.

temperature range: approximately 250F to 250F

orbit speed: The moon orbits Earth at an average of 2,287 miles per hour/3,680.5 km per hour.

orbit circumference: The moons trip around Earth is approximately 1,499,618 miles/2,413,402 km long.

orbit length: 27.3 days

average distance from Earth: 238,855 miles/384,400 km

point at which moon is closest to Earth (perigee): 225,623 miles/363,104 km

point at which moon is farthest from Earth (apogee): 252,088 miles/405,696 km

• If it were possible to travel to the moon by car, it would take 135 days. Traveling at the speed of light would take 1.23 seconds.

• The moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches/3.8 cm per year.

SOURCE: (NASA)

Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, was a sacred astronomical site for the Anasazi. (National Park Service)

Phases of the Moon