THE MOON WILL FALL

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 January 1931, Page 12

THE MOON WILL FALL

ACCORDING TO SIR J. JEANS. One day the moon will crash into the earth. Millions of fragments will then surround the globe in rings like Salurn’s. It will be moonlight all night. The drawback will be a bombardment of tiny falling moons. We shan’t be there to see these things, but they are going to happen, according to Sir James Jeans. Sir James, who recently startled the world with the statement that Man is a pure accident, broadcast recently. “In the far future,” he said, “our own moon must inevitably be drawn in closer and closer to the earth, until finally it comes too near for safety and must meet its fate. After this our earth will have millions of little moons which will surround it in a frill of rings like Saturn’s. Not only will they reflect far more of the sun’s light than does our present moon itself, but there will be full moonlight all night long. “Yet life on the earth will be none too comfortable. Every now and then tiny moons will collide and their fragments fall on the earth in the form of huge rocks.” Sir James said he did not believe' that there was life on Mars of the kind we know.