Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 36

The Reality of Make-Believe

While coasting in darkness over the lunar farside (left), the passengers endure extreme cold inside their capsule. But they warm
quickly (right) once the capsule returns to sunlight.

resembled the lunar surface from afar, and therefore
geologists imagined innumerable volcanoes as the source
of lunar craters. Verne's knowledge of current geological
theories surely satisﬁed his science-minded followers.
The Apollo missions ultimately dashed any lingering faith in the volcano theory. Samples collected by its
astronauts, along with spectrographic data from orbiting
craft, prove that high-velocity impacts formed the vast
majority of lunar craters. There are no active volcanoes
on the Moon, though eruptions shaped the topography
Apollo 8 Mission Highlights

Parking
orbit
Recovery
in Paciﬁc
Ocean

Tran

sea

rth

Lunar
orbit

traje

ctor
y (5
8 ho

urs)

S&T: LEAH TISCIONE; SOURCE: NASA

Launch
from
Florida
Engine
restart

ry
cto
raje
ar t urs)
n
nslu ho
Tra (66
trajectory
lingshot"
Rocket "s

To
solar
orbit

Command/service module
and rocket separate

Apollo 8's December 1968 ﬂight to the Moon and back took 6 days. Its threeman crew orbited the Moon for 20 hours at an average altitude of 69 miles.

36

June 2015 sky & telescope

in the distant past. The large, dark, characteristically
circular maria are in fact vast lava plains that partially
ﬁlled basins excavated by titanic impacts. Billions of
years later, these lava "seas" made ideal landing pads for
the six Apollo missions that reached the lunar surface.
As Verne's astronauts continue around the farside of
the Moon, a meteor streaks below them and explodes
above the surface. The ﬁreball brightens the lunar landscape momentarily, and the travelers are able to decipher
what appear to be clouds, continents, seas, and forests.
During the journey, Verne cites many scientists of the
day who debated the existence of a lunar atmosphere.
The three astronauts continue that debate and wonder if
it was merely an illusion.
As it rounds the south pole, the projectile emerges
into daylight. The travelers then observe the bleak,
scarred landscape of the Moon's southern hemisphere.
They see, "Nothing belonging to a living world - everything to a dead world, where avalanches, rolling from the
summits of the mountains, would disperse noiselessly at
the bottom of the abyss. . . . In any case it was the image
of death, without its being possible to even say that life
had ever existed there."
Buzz Aldrin, who in July 1969 became the second
astronaut to walk on the Moon, expressed his awe and
wonder about the beautiful but barren lunar landscape,
calling it "magniﬁcent desolation."

Sky and Telescope - June 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - June 2015

Contents
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 3
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 5
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - A
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - B
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 6
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 7
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 8
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 9
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 10
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 11
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 12
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 13
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Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover4
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