Chapter 11 Chapter 10 The Observer of the Moon

With regard to the deviation of the projectile orbit, Barbicane has apparently found the only acceptable cause.The deviation, though not too great, was enough to alter the trajectory of the projectile.That's how it should be.A daring scientific experiment was aborted by a small accident, and they never reached the moon again.Will they get close enough to the moon to be able to solve some physics or geology problems about the moon that have not been solved until now?That was the primary concern of these three intrepid travelers.As for their future fate, they don't even want to think about it.But where would they end up in this infinite solitude?Besides, the air was about to run out, and in a few days they would suffocate to death in this erratic shell.But days meant centuries to these three intrepid men, who spent all their time observing the moon they could no longer hope to reach.

At this moment, the distance between the projectile and the Earth satellite was estimated to be only about two hundred leagues.In this case, the three travelers, in terms of visibility from the lunar surface, were farther from the moon than the inhabitants of the earth with their powerful telescopes. For, as we all know, the telescope installed by John Ross at Parsons was able to magnify the moon six thousand five hundred times and shorten the distance to sixteen leagues;Not to mention the powerful telescope of Langfeng, which can magnify celestial bodies in the dark night by 48,000 times, shorten the distance to less than two miles, and can clearly see all objects on the moon with a diameter of ten meters.

Observing the Moon with the unaided eye at this distance, therefore, clearly cannot ascertain the details of its appearance, and the human eye can see the outlines of, but cannot determine the extent of, those vast, low-lying regions improperly called "seas." nature.Now even the high mountains that jutted out of the lunar surface were hidden from view in the radiant reflection of the sun's rays on the lunar surface.The lunar surface is as dazzling as a bathtub filled with silver solution, making you turn your eyes away. At this time, the elliptical shape of the night object can already be seen.The moon is like a huge egg, with the smaller end always facing the earth.Because the moon was a liquid state or a plastic round sphere at the beginning of its formation.However, it is at the center of gravity of the earth, so under the influence of its own gravity, it becomes an ellipse after a while.Just because it became a satellite of the earth, it lost its original round shape; this is because its own center of gravity gradually moved outward; some scientists concluded that the air and water on the moon They all fled to the other half of the sphere that can never be seen on the earth.

The ellipse of Earth's satellite becomes invisible after a while.Because the distance between the projectile and the moon is rapidly shrinking, its speed is also much higher than the initial speed, but it is still eight or nine times faster than the speed of the special express car.The inclination of the direction of the shell made Michel hope that it would land somewhere on the moon.He didn't believe it couldn't reach the moon.No!He repeated over and over that he would never believe it.But Barbicane, the more qualified arbitrator, kept telling him with merciless logic: "No, Michelle. We can only crash into the moon, not land on it. The centripetal force makes us subject to the lunar attraction, but the centrifugal force forces us away from the moon. It is an irresistible force."

The tone in which he said this dispelled Michel Ardan's last hope. The projectile gradually approached the northern hemisphere of the moon: that is, the lower part of the lunar net, because generally, he said, the images of the lunar surface at that time were drawn based on the images provided by the telescope, and we know that the images in the telescope are upside down.This is how M is drawn on the Bier and Madrell lunar map that Barbican is now referring to.The Northern Hemisphere has many vast plains and isolated mountains. At midnight, the moon is exactly full.If that pesky bolide hadn't disturbed the jet's direction, the three travelers would be landing on the moon by now.The celestial body of the night arrived on time according to strict conditions set by the Cambridge Observatory.Strictly speaking, it has reached its perigee and the zenith of the twenty-seventh parallel.Had a man observed from the deepest part of the great Columbia cannon, perpendicular to the horizon, he would have seen the moon fall precisely in the muzzle.The centerline of the cannon runs right through the center of the night sky.

Needless to say, during the whole night of the fifth night, none of the three passengers rested.So close to this new world, who could close their eyes?cannot.All their senses were united in one thought: Behold!They think that they are the representatives of the earth, of the past and present human beings. It is through their eyes that human beings are observing various regions of the moon and spying on the secrets of their satellites!They were very excited and quietly walked from this porthole to another glare window. Their observations were sorted out by Barbicane and strictly affirmed.They have telescopes to observe, and they have maps of the moon to check.

The first observer of the Moon was Galileo.His poor telescope can only magnify thirty times.Yet he was able to be the first to discern, among the dotted spots "like the eyes of a peacock's tail" on the lunar disk, the mountains whose height he exaggeratedly believed to be twenty times the diameter of the crater. One-third, that is to say, eight thousand eight hundred meters.Galileo did not map the lunar surface from his observations. A few years later, the Danzig astronomer Hevelius—according to his method of observation, correct observations could be made only during the period of the first quarter moon and the beginning of the last quarter moon in a month—reduced the height of these mountains to only 1/2 of the diameter of the crater. One twenty-sixth.But what we should thank the scientist for is his first map of the moon.The bright dots are craters, and the black dots are vast mares. In fact, this kind of sea only exists in the plains.He named these mountains and seas after names from Earth.We can see Mount Sinai appearing on the Arabian Plain, Mount Etna in the center of Sicily, the Alps, Apennines, and Carpathian Mountains, as well as the Mediterranean Sea, Sea of ​​Azov, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea.Besides, these names are not used properly, because these seas bear no resemblance to the seas of the earth.Only to the south are the bright blotches that join the vast continents, often fringed at the fringe, allowing us to make out the silhouettes of the Indian peninsula, the Bay of Bengal, and the Cochin China peninsula.Therefore these names are no longer used.The other luna chartist, who was better at understanding the human heart, suggested new names that human vanity would gladly accept.

This observer was Father Riccioli, a contemporary of Hevelius.His picture of the moon was crude and full of errors.But he gave the mountains of the moon the names of many great men of antiquity and scientists of his day, which have remained in use ever since. The third map of the moon was done by Dominique Cassini in the sixteenth century: it is better drawn than Riccioli's, but the scale is not correct.Several miniature editions were published later, but the copper plate of this lunar map has been kept in the Royal Library for many years, and was later sold as rubbish. The famous mathematician and cartographer Rahil once drew a map of the moon, which is four meters high, but never engraved with cherry blossoms.

Then, in the mid-eighteenth century, a German astronomer, Toby Meyer, began to publish a magnificent map of the moon, which he corrected for the proportions of the moon; but he died in 1762, so it was not completed This beautiful job. Later Schröder of Lilienthal, who made many sketches of the moon, and then Lohrmann of Dresden, to whom we owe the map of the moon divided into twenty-five regions, Unfortunately, only four regions are engraved. Finally, in 1830, Messrs. Bill and Madrell made this famous map of the lunar surface using the orthographic projection method.This picture corresponds exactly to the pattern of the lunar disk: only the central part, however, has the correct outlines of mountains and plains: as for the other parts, whether north or south, east or west, all these outlines are not as miniature as the central part. .This topographic map of the moon, ninety-five centimeters high and divided into four parts, was a masterpiece of lunar cartography at that time.

Besides these scientists we should also mention the reliefs of the lunar topography by the German astronomer Julius Schmidt, the topographic maps of the moon by Father Secchi, the beautiful photography by the English amateur astronomer Warren De La Rue The topographic map of the lunar surface, and at the end there are the orthographic projections of Mr. Le Gugiuri and Sharpui, with clear lines and clear layout. The original map was drawn in 1860. This is the list of the various lunar maps. Barbicane had two of them, one by Bell and Madrell, the other by Chapuille and Le Gugiuri.These two pictures brought a lot of convenience to his observation work.As for the optics he had at hand, it was a fine pair of nautical binoculars, made especially for this trip.It is capable of magnifying objects a hundredfold: thus reducing the distance between the Moon and the Earth to a thousand leagues.However, it was about three o'clock in the morning, and the distance between them and the moon would never exceed 120 kilometers, and without the interference of the atmosphere, this pair of telescopes could shorten the distance to the moon's surface to within 1,500 meters.