Chapter 5 Chapter 5 The Story of the Moon

A sharp-eyed observer, if he had stood in the time of chaos at an unknowable center around which the universe revolved, would have seen space filled with billions of atoms.But, after many centuries, slowly a change took place, and the law of gravitation came into being, and was governed by this law to the atoms which hitherto had been free, and which, under the influence of their affinities, combined into molecules, A cloud of mist-like matter is formed, scattered in the depths of space. Each cloud of mist-like matter immediately began to revolve around its own center.The center composed of boundless molecules also gradually condenses and begins to rotate; according to the eternal law of mechanics, as the volume condenses and shrinks, the rotation speed also increases, and these two mutually causal effects continue. As it develops, a main star cluster is formed, which is the center of the nebula.

Observers will see that the rest of the nebulous matter is the same as the central star cluster, each forming a system, and gradually gathering together as the rotation speed increases, forming countless stars revolving around the main star cluster. clear star.This is how nebulae are formed.According to the statistics of astronomers, there are now nearly 5,000 nebulae. Among the five thousand nebulae, a nebula called "the Milky Way" contains eighteen million stars, and one star is the center of a solar system. If the observer paid special attention to one of the most ordinary and faintest stars of the fourth magnitude among these eighteen million bodies, and paid special attention to a body proudly called the sun, then the various phenomena at the beginning of the formation of the solar system One after another, they will appear before his eyes.

Indeed, the sun at that time was still in a state of gas, composed of countless moving molecules.He would see it spinning on its own axis, doing the work of cohesion.This movement conforming to the laws of mechanics becomes faster and faster as the volume shrinks, so at a certain moment, the centripetal force that pushes the molecules to the center is overcome by the centrifugal force. At this time, another phenomenon appeared under the eyes of the observer. The molecules on the surface of the equator broke away from the sun, like the rope of a catapult suddenly snapped, and the stone flew out, forming several concentric halos around the sun, just like the halo of Saturn today. .These rings of cosmic matter rotate around their common center, and then it is their turn to break up to form new clouds of matter, that is to say, to form planets.

If the observer concentrates all his attention to observe these planets at this time, he will see that they form a system of their own like the sun, producing one or several ring-shaped cosmic matter, which is the source of the low-level celestial bodies we call satellites. Therefore, from atoms to molecules, from molecules to cloudy matter, from cloudy matter to nebula, from nebula to main star, and then from main star to the sun, from the sun to planets, from planets to satellites, we have seen the beginning of the universe The series of changes that a celestial body undergoes. Although the sun seems to be lost in the boundless world of stars, according to modern scientific theory, it is closely connected with the nebula of the Milky Way.Although the center of the solar system appears so small in space, it is actually huge because the volume of the sun is 1.4 million times that of the earth.There are eight planets revolving around the sun, which are its eight "children" born at the beginning of creation.Counting from the nearest, they are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and between Mars and Jupiter, there are many relatively small objects that orbit regularly, perhaps A celestial body broken into thousands of pieces, now there are ninety-seven that can be seen with a telescope. Among these "servants" bound by the sun's great gravitational law in an elliptical orbit, there are several own satellite.Uranus has eight, Saturn has eight, Jupiter has four, Neptune has probably three, Earth has one, and the moon is one of the least important satellites in the solar system, and it is it that the Americans set out to conquer with daring genius.

Because it is relatively close and changes its phases all the time, the celestial body in the night is the same as the sun at the beginning, which attracts the attention of the residents on the earth, but it is easy to hurt the eyes, and its brilliant light forces the observer to look down. Eyes say. On the contrary, the golden Fu Bei is more approachable, she makes people appreciate her simple charm, she is not ambitious, she has a soft light, but sometimes she has the courage to give her brother, the spring-faced Apollo ① to her. Covered, but he never covered her.Moslems have long known that they should be grateful to this faithful girlfriend of the earth, and they base their months on her revolution.

Primitives especially worshiped this chaste goddess.The Egyptians called her Isis, the Fat Nikians called her Astarte, and the Greeks worshiped the moon goddess named Phoebe, the daughter of Latono and Jupiter, and they said that the lunar eclipse was the moon god. To see pretty Andy Manne go.If the myths are to be believed, the lion of Nemea, before coming to the earth, hunted in the fields of the moon, as Plutarch cites, the poet Assianas sang in praise of the venerable moon that shines. Part of her soft eyes, charming nose and mouth. Even if the ancients understood the character, temperament, and, in short, her spiritual qualities of the moon from a mythological point of view, the most learned among them knew nothing of lunar science.

However, many ancient astronomers discovered some characteristics of the moon that are confirmed by today's science.The Acadian people said that they lived on the earth in the period without the moon. Tacius believed that the moon was a fragment separated from the celestial body of the sun. The smooth mirror of the oceans, and finally others thought that the moon was nothing but a cloud of vapor escaping from the earth, or a revolving sphere of half fire and half ice, though some scientists, though without optical instruments, Relying on keen observation alone, I still guessed most of the laws governing the celestial bodies in this dark night.

Thales the Milesian, for example, expressed in the fifth century BC the opinion that the moon is illuminated by the sun.Aristarchus the Samian correctly explained the waxing and waning of the moon.Cleomenes pointed out that the light of the moon is a reflected light.Belos the Chaldean discovered that its rotation and revolution time are equal, thus explaining why the moon always faces the earth.Finally, Hipparchus in the second century B.C. found some uniformity in the apparent motions of the satellites of the earth. Many of these observations were later confirmed and will be of great use to future astronomers.Regarding the mean difference of the moon, Ptolemy②in the second century and Arab Abwefa③in the tenth century supplemented the observations of Hipparchus successively. They said that the orbit of the moon became a wave under the influence of the sun. Shaped line, so there is a phenomenon of uniform difference.Later, Cozini ④ in the fifteenth century, and Tyco Brahe in the sixteenth century, successively and completely explained the system of zixiao and the role of the moon among the celestial bodies.

At that time, almost all of its motions could be explained: but little was known about its material structure.Galileo ⑤ used the existence of mountains to explain the light phenomenon of certain phases of the moon.He said that the average height of those mountains was 4,500 Torvalds. After him, the Gdansk astronomer Gevili lowered the highest mountains to 2,600 Torvalds, but his colleague Ricioli raised them to 7,000 Torvalds. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Herschel, who had a powerful telescope, lowered the height of the top very low.He said that the highest mountain was only 1,900 Torvalds, and the average height of the peaks was reduced to 400 Torvalds.But Herschel was still wrong, and the question was finally settled by the observations of Schrotter, Rouwell, Halley, Nasmyth, Bianchini, Basdorff, Lohrmann, and Cressoison, In particular, Mr. Bill ③ and Madrell ④ worked tirelessly to solve it thoroughly.Thanks to these scientists, we can actually figure out the height of the lunar mountains today.Messrs. Bill and Madrell have measured 1,905 mountains, of which six are more than 2,600 Torvalds high, and twenty-two are more than 2,400 Torvalds high.The tallest mountain, from a height of 3,801 Torvalds, overlooks the surface of the lunar disc.

At the same time, our knowledge of the moon has also been enriched. It seems that this celestial body is full of decaying mountains, and every observation has concluded that they are basically volcanic in nature.From the fact that the stars of the planets it eclipses have no radial difference, we can say that there is almost no air on the Moon.Without air, naturally there is no water.So it is clear that to live under these conditions, the lunar people must have a special body structure, which is very different from the inhabitants of the earth. In short, some relatively sophisticated instruments use new methods to search the moon continuously, leaving no place unexplored.Although its diameter is 2,150 miles, its area is one-thirteenth that of the earth, and its volume is one-fortieth that of the earth, its secrets cannot escape the eyes of astronomers. Scientists' bizarre observations go even further.

For example, they noticed some white lines appearing in certain areas of the lunar disk during the full moon, and some black lines appeared during the waning moon.After some more rigorous research, they were finally able to figure out the nature of the lines.They were long thin trenches dug between two parallel sides, extending all the way around the crater: each trench was between ten and a hundred miles long, and eight hundred towaz wide.Astronomers call them "grooves," but all they can do is give them that name.As for whether these grooves are dry ancient river channels, they have not been able to get a satisfactory solution.So Americans long to one day be able to ascertain this geological fact.They also took on the task of clarifying the series of parallel barriers on the surface of the moon. They were first discovered by Professor Kli Duisson of Fu Xue in Munich. He believed that this was a fortress system built by engineers on the moon. These two This problem, and of course many others, had not yet been clarified, and had to wait until direct contact with the Moon had been established. As for the intensity of the moonlight, it has been completely settled. It is well known that its intensity is 1/300,000th that of the sunlight, and its heat has no noticeable effect on the thermometer. As for the phenomenon called "grey light".Naturally it is the result of the sun's rays reflected from the earth onto the moon, and at the beginning of each month and at the twilight of the moon it seems that the rest of the crescent is filled with this reflected light. This was all that was then known about Earth's satellites, and the members of the Cannon Club intended to flesh it out from the standpoints of cosmology, geology, politics, and ethics.