MOONED DOOMED TO CRASH

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 95, 20 May 1938, Page 1

MOONED DOOMED TO CRASH

PROFESSOR'S PREDICTION. The moon—the earth’s only child, out which died, as Professor J. Thomson, the eminent scientist, onee spoke oi it—is doomed to crash into countless millions of fragments which will surround the globe like Saturn’s Such is the startling prediction of Sir James Jonas, the noted astrono--1 ner. Scientists have known for a long time that the moon is falling towards the earth, and Sir James Jeans says there is reason to believe it will eventually come within the “danger zone" and break into pieces—first two, then four, then eight, and gradually into myriads of particles. When lids comes to pass the earth will have ontinuons moonlight, and will be surermiuled by rings like Saturn. 1 seem strange that such a fate should be awaiting the earth’s only ateiiile, As a matter of fact its ultimate fate seems I or more certain than its o a igin. Although the moon has been an object of poets’ admiration au hue earliest days of civilisation, au although astronomers have been imp lug it. there are probably more 1 \ stories associated with it than any a! the other members of the solar Professor James Thomson’s pieturciiuc description of the moon as the earth's “only child which died,” lias ; een mentioned. Yet only recently Jr. Harold Jeffreys, a famous Camridge University mathematician, uublished a book iii which he questions the theory, and makes the moon die sister of the earth. Accepting he thrum that passing star, approaching unduly near the sun, drew uat a vast mass from which the earth and the rest of the planets were i armed, lie maintains that the moon was part of the mass so removed. It all happened at one and the same time, according to his calculation, so that tim earth and the moon are both 1 hildvrn of the sun. Tim other theory, simply explained a the lute famous astronomer, Sir im f-d! was that the moon was : hi m off , 1 i '\ early in the earth's id-torv In those far-off ages it was i I My heated, so much so that it was a oaf! molten mass of matter spinal a- round four limes as fast as the .With mini- at pi(sent. The speed in final primitive globe was so great Hull a rapture took place. A pari 1 the molten matter broke* awa\ ■ an ilia aaivnf globe, and formed inti a small globe adjoining tim aim. i irigiiiully the moon was ,a: S,rv close In the earth that they were practically revolving in contact, until very gradually (he moon receded ia a dvtanue of about a quarter of a million miles. anna have suggested that llm Pacific Ocean is the vast hollow form- ■ | i,y (he a gel lug of the moon. Blit a German professor, who has eomI.tiled tl ■ theory, has measured up, as in ■ a a 1 v a lie could, the size of the a .in of’ the Pacific Ocean, and he ,kikes it only 167 million cubic miles, whereas the’ moon itself is approximately 52-10 million cubic miles. If the quire occupied by the basins ol all till* world’s oceans were added together, there would still be insufficient matter missing* to account for l ha size of the moon. This scientist [is in favor of Dr. Jeffrey’s theory. Just as the origin of the moon has been the object of much speculation, so, too, has the character of its surface, There is no doubt that in the dim, distant past it was covered with gigantic volcanoes, some towering up 2(h000ft„ and of a size which makes those on this earth seem like molehills. The moon’s volcanoes, however, are all extinct, but terrific outbursts onee took place. It was once thought that the surface of the moonwas covered with molten lava, but the Metidoit Observatory in Parts has car-

> riod out research os which prove that, 0 ; instead, it is covered with a layer of - volcanic ash, and that this was " 1 belched from lunar volcanoes. We all i remember how Pompeii was buried as : n result of an eruption of Vesuvius. Even more extraordinary still is the ’ suggestion put forward by Sir James deans last year that the whole of the 1 moon may consist of volcanic ash. | > Night on the moon must be inconceivably cold. While even at the * North Pole the temperature Hardly I ever falls lower than 50 degrees Ceni trigrade below freezing, on the moon it is thought that it drops to over j 1 200 degrees below zero. In such tern- • peratures, astronomers have said that | no life can possibly exist. Yet only | two years back Mr W. 11. Pickering, ' ; formerly an astronomer on the staff I ‘ of the famous American observatory ' at Harvard, startled the scientific , world by saying lie had seen evidence of life on the moon. Here is another ! mystery for the astronomical world to probe. It is customary for the world’s scientists to share out such heavenly objects as the moon between t hem, and Mr Pickering was given the crater of Eratosthenes. Watching this from Jamaica, he saw strange i happenings, of something which seems to be spreading and growing on that crater floor. Other astronomers were informed, and they watched, too, corroborating his evidence. This is one of the most fascinating speculations : Is there life-vegetation .of some sort —on the moon—of a kind of which we know nothing?