Experiment with
Projectile He
Would
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Satellite
(Continued from Preceding Page) f
transfer of the water to the land surface
In the form of snow, ' -
At length, was reached a stage where
for lack of winds that bad any carrying
power, the water evaporated by the run of
the lunar Summers was deposited as snow
immediately around and along the banks
of the seas and other water spaces. In
stead of being borne afar.
Thus, In the course of time, hundreds of
thousands of years probably, -were formed
the tremendous cliffs, thousands of feet
high, which wall the so-called
craters. j-
Once. upon, a time every such
crater was a lake or pool of
water. It might be said! that.'
pools and lakes are not usually
circular. Neither are the; cra
ters on the moon. As already
stated, they are of all kinds of
Shapes. ' - -
The modem high power Jtele
scope gave us our first oppor
tunity really to study the moon.
The. - earliest observers J per
ceived on its surface large" drab
uued splotch A which theyj, sup-
posed to be seas. We now
know that they are vast plains.
But they are plains j sur
rounded by precipitous ; and
lofty walls. They are, In fact,
mere "craters'' of enormous
size. " .
Once upon a time they really
were seas. They; are ancient
bowls from which the water has
taken flight in the form of
white flakes settling upon the
dry surface of the land,
-were 5 shallower than
They
j our
oceans, averaging not more than
halt a mile in depth.
The seas were the main source of snow
supply, and hence the most enormous era
sers are the former sea-basins. And around .
their borders on all sides, therefore, tand
high walls of snow, some of them very
precipitous on their Inward faces, but in
all cases sloping off gradually on the out
side toward the general surface of the
moon.
During 'each lunar " Summer, .with Its
fortnight of continuous jparm sunshine, a
good deal of the snow melts and the water
seeps back into the basins. ' Having done
so, it again undergoes the process of evapo- '
ration, 'and, because there ! is no wind to
carry the snowflakes (into which the vapor
Is converted a few days later), most of the
pnow remains to restore and heighten the .
bid surrounding walls. ' .
" One thing that has putzled astronomers ,
Is why the hugest mountains and mountain
ranges rise In the relatively f eatureless"
plains, where craters are fewest. It Is a
matter of easy explanation, :vj '
When those great walled plains were
occupied by seas in other words, when .
the lunar oceans were fullIslands doubt
less rose here and there above the surface
Of the water. Situated as these Islands
were in the very heart of the principal
snow-producing districts, they naturally
accumulated, "by the process already de
scribed, Immense loads of snow.. They
were crowned, in the course of ages,;! by
heaps of lee and snow which now tower
thousands of , feet, even miles, toward the
sky. .' : - ;
' In this way, on a long island, was formed
the great lunar range known as the Apen-'
nines, which, extending for a distance of
450 miles, contain no fewer than 8,000,;
peaks, one of which. Mount Huyghens, at
tains an altitude Of three and a half miles.
That range is built, at least mainly, of
Snow and lce -. .' ,
Thej same may be said of another 'im-
portant range, the lunar Alps, which has
TOO peaked mountains, and is remarkable
for a tremendous valley 184 miles long and
five miles broad. Much of Its heaped-up
ice and snow doubtless came from' this
troughs originally the bed of a mighty
river; or perhaps, a long arm of the sea. ,
Similarly, the lunar Apennines Valley is
merely the vacant trough of a sound which
anciently separated the . above-mentioned
long island from the mainland. .
Imagine the long and narrow island of
. Cuba : to undergo such rapid seasonal
changes as occur on the moon. Suppose,
further, that stiows from one brief .Winter
to another should keep on accumulating
until they were piled miles high. What a
wonderful "mountain range" " It would
make, and how like the lunar Apennines!
Fancy some strange freak of nature by
which all the waters of our oceans, lakes
and rivers should be concerted into snow
and settle upon our continents and islands.
Reach
THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 21, 1921.
V
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Suggestions of the
Various Paths the
Moon Rocket May
Follow on Its
Journey, Accord
ing to Its Velocity.
4
.'-St,
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never to return again to their ancient beds. ;
What a weird and. wonderful spectacle our
planet would present! - -
,Thi3 is exactly what has happened on
the moon. .It Is why her surface' is so
magnificently and so strangely sculptured,'
It is why we see no rain clouds upon her; !
why her atmosphere has disappeared,'
buried In the snow.
Why has no t the same thing comeJto
pass on frigid Mars?' Because that planet
-revolves in front of the sun every- twenty
four hours (or about that), as the earth;
does. It has therefore no seasonal alterna-.
tions like those of the moon. V "
. It will be understood, then, how, on the
moon, deep ponds have become cavernous
craters islands hare grown Into mountains i
and mountain' ranges, rivers have erected);
their level banks into precipitous gorges,
and great lakes have disguised themselves
as walled plains. All of these remarkable :
features are the work of Jack Frost, I 1
The craters, which from our viewpoint;,
bear an undeniable resemblance to the -
-mouths of terrestrial Yolcanoes,are thou-,
sands in number. On our planet the larg
est volcanic crater is that of Haleakla, in ;
Hawaii, wAch is seven miles in diameter. :
But some of the lunar craters are over 100 :
miles in diameter, and from that sise they
Tange down to small' ones -hardly discern-'
. Ible through the best telescope. . v
' The above statement of maxiiSum size, ;
be it understood, does not take Into ac
count the great plains, formerly ses, beds,
-- which, as already said, are themselves vast
craters surrounded by ofty cliff-Walls. , i
. Every one of the craters has its en
circling wall. In some- cases four or five
miles high. The deep ones have bottoms
(often level as a floor) much below the
" general level of the moon's surface. It is
as if a giant had dug a well and piled the '
excavated material around Mia fcrtm. nnm
the inner face of the wall is so precipitous
as to be almost vertical: but no matter
how steep this inner face, the outward
slope away from the crater's mouth Is in
variably a long and gradual slant.
The mdst interesting craters present the
aspect of immense walled amphitheatres.
Scattered over the floors of some of them
are smaller craters, and in many Instances
tall mountains shaped like gigantic sugar
loaves rise from the level plain which the
cliff-wall eacompasses. ; v
This latter feature has been particularly
Duzsling. to astronomers, wlin tmm hn t
a loss to hit upon any plausible explana-
tion.
o uooaeni mac ine Idea of
inow-transfer. is grasped both the sugar
loaf mountains and the subsidiary craters
are easily accounted tor. - -
Suppose the original exltpnp nt iavA
Its disappearance, through evaporation and
transfer to the land in the form of snow,
was gradual. As the process continued
the surface level of its water lowered,
bringing into view here and there dera
tion of th bottom wMsh. em&rslnjL b.
v .. : 1
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. ,
. f
V' .v
:
A Remarkable Reconstruction of an Immense (Crater on the Moon
Called Ptolemaeus. So Large Is This Indentation That All of Man
hattan Island, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Many Hundreds of Square
Miles of New Jersey and, New 'York Could Nestle in It With Ease,
as the Accurate Relief Map Within the Walls Show,
r Bp Courtety of the Bray Pictures Corporation, New York:
oamenslands. As soon as theseeleva-
tions became dry land they began to
accumulate snow, and, being most
favorably situated for that purpose in the
midst of a large snow-producing area, they
gathered snow with a maximum rapidity.
And in the course, of time the snow was
bound to assume upon. them the form of
lofty to wars, veritable icy mountains, of
a more or less sugar-loaf pattern,
' So much for the sugar-loaves. Now sup
pose (as must have happened) the evapora
tion to continue until the bed of the lake
was dmost dry. There would still be pits
here and there, depressions, containing
water. As evaporation went on, sowry dry
ing up this residue of water, snow would
be deposited around the edges of the pits.
The process, exactly the same as that al
ready described, would convert these pits
into lesser wailed craters rexactly such
minor craters 1 as are scattered over the
floors of many of the big craters on the
moon. ; - ' .
- It might be said that every dent in the
moon's surface that anciently contained
water has become a crater by the conver
sion' of Its 'fluid contents into snowflakes
and the settling of the latter on its brim.
Hence there .is no reason to be surprised
at the extraordinary number of craters
seen on' the lunar landscape. '
The telescope can discern on the moon
an object the size of a city block, but noth
ing smaller than that. We can, therefore,
see only craters that are of considerable
,slze. Probably there are mutltudes of
lesser ones too small to be distinguished.
It is noticeable that the floors of many
lunar craters are deep below the level of
the normal surface of the moon, whereas
'those of terrestrial volcanic mouths are
Invariably much higher.; And the deeper
the' crater the higher are the walls en
circling it because the water in the orig-"
lnal lake or pool was deeper, supplying
more vapor to make snow, which, with no -
winds to scatter it, settled on the encom-
passing walls and added progressively to
their height.
Notwithstanding what has been said, the
atmosphere of the moon has not wholly
departed. There is stffl some of it left,
though it must be extremely thin. What
there is of It can carry moisture. Pro
fessor Pickering, the famous Harvard as
tronomer, has written of clouds of vapory
fog or mist which he has seen sweeping
across the rast plains called "seas. On
one occasion he saw the lunar ridge of
Teneriff e "steaming from end to end
Other astronomers, observing these
tranz oecnrreneeH- bnv t rimtut m
j to "noxious gases escaping from volcanio
; Teats." . .
. The crater called Mostinr A l 4t i.
in diameter and 3.000 feet deen. with .
floor of brilliant whiteness. But with the
arrival of the lunar Summer a dark spot
appears on the' floor, growing In slaer to a
breadth of about a mile. There are other
large craters in which at the same sea
sonal period similar spots are observed,
(Q UH, Xntntaaaal rattan Barrio. Id .
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"" ' '.' ' - 1 ' ' . , . l . '. 4 , . - ..." , :
V; AU " ; - . . '
which disappear with the oncomlnr of the
lunar Winters. -V ; ,
Very curious. What may we suppose
these spots to be? The answer is easy.
They are water from the k melting of the
encircling snow walls bf the craters water
that seeps down to the lowest leve in the
middle of the crater and -forms a pooL
targe areas of .the great plains called
"seas" darken with the advance of each
lunar Summer, but resume their normal
'lighter color in the lunar Autumn. Water -again,
from melted snows.''
The spots In the craters and the dark
areas on the plains disappear In the. way
described because the water is evaporated
by, the sun. to be thereupon converted into
snowflakes and redeposited on the dry sur
faces of the moon. ; Some of the snow, of
course, falls Into the water; -but the water
covered areas steadily shrink, leaving more
and more of the surface bare until all of'
it is dry. .The snow has no chance to ac
cumulate In any Quantity on those areas,
and what does remain is quickly melted
and evaporated in the early lunar Spring.
The atmosphere of the moon Is so thin
that wate,on that orbTnay be supposed to
boil at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and
evaporation must be rapid at a point not
much above freezing. The mists of vapor
observed- by Pickering and' others are
doubtless produced by the evaporation of '
the temporary pools. ' . , " ' . t ' '
- For the production of snow on the moon
we do not need to Imagine clouds. ' Nansen
nd other explorers have testified that in
Arctla latitudes the transformation of at
.mospherlo vapor Into snow is accomplished
. directly "and without clouds. In those re-
fions-a fine-dusty snot is often precipi
tated' from the air when the sky is cloud
less. .. : ;.'. ;-
It is interesting in this connection to
Quote Professor Russell W, Porter, who
? writes: "Having spent many years above
the Arctic Circle,-1 swas struck by the
strange likeness of the moon's general -aspect
to our own polar regions. The long
reaches of the frozen-polar ocean, trav
ersed by Immense- ridges and cracks, the
dazzling whiteness and clear-cut shadows,
the desolation and loneliness all seemed
to find a counterpart In the lunar land-,
scape." v . -'
Professor Goddard's project of commu
nicating with the moon opens x up the in
teresting possibility that more of its at
mosphere may be liberated from the snows
and our satellite thus made habitable.
It would not be possible absolutely to
verify the Ideas here set forth without
making a journey to the moon, landing
upon Its surface and examining it. "
If the moon can some day be reached
by a rocket, as Professor Ooddard suggests.
It will be the most momentous achieve
ment of science. When the national Gov
ernment wastes countless millions every
year and people give blindly to such dubi
ous things as the Red Cross it will be
strange if the necessary funds cannot be
found to finance Professor Goddard's In
teresting experiment. - -
Cast zttala 9gt
1
. Wit.
-si
IBB
II.
Professor R. H. Coddard, Assistant
Professor of Physics at Clark Uni-
versity, - Massachusetts, and the
Vacuum Pipe in WhicE He JetU
with a Small Model of His Appar--atus
the Conditions Which His
Rocket Would Hare to Encounter
on Its Way. to the Moon '-
While Professor Goddarddoes not. ad
mit that he contemplates sending human
passengers to the moon at present, be
came that might raise too sanguine ex
pectations, the theory of his invention
makes that achievement possible, and it
is evident that that Is the ultimate object -
of his plans. In that case the fanlastla.
adventure described in Jules Verne's "Trip .
to the Moon" would become a reality, as
so many of the other imaginative -visions
of the great scientific novelist have done.
All the details have been thought out
for making' the moon rocket a comfortable .
vehicle for passengers. She would have a
powerful double steel envelope, with
vacuum chamber to compensate for the
changes in atmospherlo surroundings.
Oxygen would be -tarnished by a tank
within the machine as in submarines. v
Professor GoddardU skyrocket was rec
ognized as an Implement of great military
possibilities during the war and would
have been used if hostilities had continued
k iew monus longer, ine rocxet as fle-,
signed was capable of remaining In the air
for-a. flight of 200 miles and could have
been employed to causa very destructive
(Ax..
"''V:
K
v.
A Model of Professor God - -dard'a
Projected Moori
Rocket With Which He
Has Been Experimenting
and, demoralizing
effecU behind th
enemy's lines.
In order to obtain valuable results front
sending the rocket to the moon It would
"be Tieceisary that competent scientists
should make the trip and take photo
graphs.' Whether they could go on a tour
of exploration on the moon's surface ap
pears to be a separate problem, as an air
satellite is believed to have no atmosphere
capable of supporting life. In that case. It
would be necessary to make special vehi
cles in which the scientists could travel
about the moon. - ,v
; Even the preliminary dispatch' of a
rocket to the moon without a human pas-'
senger would be an occurrence of great
interest and scientific value. It . would
prove the possibility of sending men there.
It should not be difficult to record the
arrival of the1 rocket, on the moon's sup
face. With our most powerful telescopes
the moon Is now broughV within an appar
ent distance of fifty miles of the earth.
An object 500 feet in length would be read
ily visible at that distance. '
The rocket would be designed to dls- -
cnarge a heavy explosion of black smoke
upon striking the moon's surface. This
cught to be seen and reported by such,
telescopes as tsa ona ai MnW wnn
and several others.-
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