MOON

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

—Joel 3:15

3593 Features Of The Moon

The moon is unique in our Solar System. It is the only satellite of a size comparable to its planet, Earth. The moon has a diameter about one-fourth of the earth’s, and a surface less than half that of the Atlantic Ocean.

The most striking features on the moon are the many thousands of craters, named after philosophers and men of science. These craters range in size from a mile or less across, to magnificent walled plains some 150 miles in diameter. Moreover, there are high, sharp-peaked mountains, the highest of which reaches 35,000 feet (higher than Mount Everest).

3594 Moon’s Hidden Side

The distance between the earth and moon is 239,000 miles. It takes 27.3 days for the moon to complete a full revolution around the earth, and it takes exactly the same time for the moon to spin once on its own axis. This means that the moon remains at a standstill in relation to the earth’s movement so that it always presents the same face to earth.

In Christmas 1968, astronauts Frank Borman, William Anders and James Lovell became the first men to see with their own eyes the hidden side of the moon. So impressed were they of God’s creation that they read from Genesis 1.

3595 Those Moon Rocks

Apollo 11 brought back from the moon samples of rocks taken from the top layer of the lunar surface. These were small, ranging between the size of a pea and 5 inches long.

The lunar rocks were found pitted with small, glass-lined pock marks. Some were covered with spatters of glass. The samples showed the moon rocks composed of up to 50% glass—most of it sharp and angular without color. A further 10% of the glass particles were spherical and coloured red, brown, green, yellow and violet. On earth, very little glass is found in the soil.

3596 Moon’s Light

The moon gives about 1/465,000 as much light as the sun. And it is about a quarter as bright as a candle of one yard distance.

3597 Blue Moon

Both the moon and the sun can appear blue, as happened with the sun in 1883 after the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in Java, and in 1950 when the moon appeared blue throughout the Western Hemisphere after a forest fire in Alberta, Canada. The reason is that if individual molecules in the air—particularly dust—come between the source of light and the observers, the light scatters and becomes richer in shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) than in the longer, yellow or red wavelengths.

3598 Sale Of Lot On Moon Stopped

Some time ago in 1975 a U. S. District Court judge in Tucson, Arizona, issued a preliminary injunction preventing the U. S. Postal Service and a Tucson business from distributing orders for novelty deeds to lots on the moon. The ad offered deeds to 1,000-acre lots on the moon for $4.98.

3599 “The Moon-Rakers”

The people of Wilt-shrine are called “Moon-Rakers.” The story: During the prohibition, they were noted whisky smugglers. One day, seeing the coastguard appearing, they sunk into the sea some boxes of the prohibited stuff.

When they supposed the coast was again clear, they used long rakes to recover the goods from the sea. And lo! the coastguard reappeared and demanded what they were doing. Pointing to the reflection of the moon in the water, they replied: “We are trying to take out that cream-cheese yonder.”

3600 Where It All Went

Tradition has it that on the limbo of the moon are treasured up such things as: time misspent in play, all useless efforts, all vows never paid, all intentions which lead to nothing, the vanity of flattery titles, the promises of princes, death-bed alms, and other similar vanities.

See also: Heavenly Phenomenon ; Signs and Wonders ; Stars ; Sun ; Isa. 13:10; Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24; Luke 21:25; Rev. 6:12; 8:12.