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The Moon is the most viewed object in the sky, the Sun being too bright to look at directly and the planets too far away. The Greeks deduced everything that could be learned about the Moon using only the naked eye, including that it has no light of its own but reflects that of the Sun. They understood the cause of eclipses and used the Earth's shadow on the Moon to conclude that our planet is a sphere and to calculate the size of both the Moon and the Earth. The invention of the telescope some two millennia later offered the opportunity for much greater understanding, but the early observers became sidetracked onto a dead end: First, they fooled themselves into believing that they saw evidence of life on the Moon, even the works of a civilization. Second, they became convinced that the craters of the Moon were volcanoes like those we have on Earth. These wrong-headed beliefs took centuries to dispel. The origin of the Moon itself has proven an even more difficult question, but scientists have now closed in on the answer. They find that our placid and seemingly unchanging Moon was born in colossal violence as a planet the size of Mars crashed into the primordial Earth and flung off a blob that solidified to become our heavenly companion.
Unlocking the Moon's Secrets follows these developments to show how science evolves, complete with misunderstandings, contentious arguments, difficult-to-relinquish assumptions, and shifting views as new facts come to light. Thanks to the work of generations of determined scientists, we understand our Moon, at last.
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Ancient Astronomers
Part I: The Origin of the Moon's Craters
Chapter 2. Pioneers of Modern Astronomy
Chapter 3. Mapping and Measuring
Chapter 4. The Moon's Myriad Craters
Chapter 5. Colliding Moonlets
Chapter 6. Cryptic Craters
Chapter 7. To the Moon
Part II: The Origin of the Moon
Chapter 8. The Rise and Fall of the Nebular Hypothesis
Chapter 9. We Go into Space
Chapter 10. Rosetta Stone of the Solar System
Chapter 11. Volcanism on the Moon
Chapter 12. Giant Impact
Chapter 13. Green Light for Giant Impact
Chapter 14. Mother of Selene
Chapter 15. Simulating Giant Impact
Chapter 16. Summing Up and Looking Ahead
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Endnotes
James Lawrence Powell, Retired, formerly Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, served as Acting President of Oberlin, President of Franklin and Marshall College, President of Reed College, and President of the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. He has written a number of books, including The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming (2020). It followed Deadly Voyager: The Ancient Comet Strike That Changed Earth and Human History (2020). He also recently contributed to The Universe As It Really Is (2018).
