FLOWERS IN THE MOON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16366, 3 March 1921, Page 2

FLOWERS IN THE MOON.

REGENT DISCOVERIES, Flowers on the moon ? Tt sounds like a l'airy story. For centuries it was thought the moon was nothing more than a vast, lifeless cinder reflecting the light of the sun. with great barred valleys and i idges of huge mountains and dead crater* with league-long, chasms. Then one famous astronomer made the startling announcement that he had found something on the moon that looked like an immense fortification. Another has said he has picked out details of a city on the moon’s east side. Others have discovered what they declare to be canals and fields of v{'.gelation. But whatever the truth of it all is, it appears certain that there are flowers on the moon. There is a huge, round valley that the astronomers have named Plato, hemmed in on all sides by immense mountains, in the north part of the moon. You can boo it by means, of a strong telescope- Here it is the flowers teeni to grow. As the sun mounts higher and the darkness in Plato slips westward, the great plain shows changes of colour. They soon grow more evident. till, when forenoon arrives on the moon, the whole valley is dappled with spots and spaces of various hues. Then, as the long lunar forenoon nears midday there, the valley takes cn a dull, spotty brown tinge faintly streaked here and there with yellow. A wonderful growth of vegetation has sprung up under the intense heat of the sun striking through the airless space. Fantastic plants and Honors doubtless cover the ground of the valley where the sunshine rests. But, if is round the many little craters there that the vegetation i- thickest and most luxuriant. The marvellous growths liro host round these ancient vulcanic openings. ,ju«t as on this earth plants and flowers thrive best where volcanoes have been and are most active. During the night on the moon, lasting lor more than two works over most of this valley, the vegetation withers under a cold, compared with which that, at the North Pole is almost warm. U is a cold which would kill all life on this earth. Yet these plants and flowers on the moon, though frozen, are not killed. They are ready to spring into life almost immediately when the sun pours its beams-again into the airless valley of Plato. There are also other stretches near the middle of the moon, or the lunar equator, that reveal the sa 1310 tints. There, too, grow the moon flowers which tio human eye has ever seen nearer than so many thousands of mile* awav.