MOON MOSAIC — A gorgeous image of the Moon from Noel Carboni via NASA: “No single exposure can easily capture faint stars along with the subtle colors of the Moon. But this dramatic composite view highlights both. The mosaic digitally stitches together fifteen carefully exposed high resolution images of a bright, gibbous Moon and a representative background star field. The fascinating color differences along the lunar surface are real, though highly exaggerated, corresponding to regions with different chemical compositions.” (NASA)

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, North America, Australia, western Asia and most of the Pacific Ocean will be treated to a full lunar eclipse in which the moon takes on a reddish hue as it passes through the Earth’s shadow.

We borrowed this moon image from The moon hoax, or a discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings, an 1859 book that compiled the original six articles published in The Sun in 1835. A century before H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds induced panic about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, these six articles helped grow The Sun’s readership dramatically and establish it as a major New York newspaper. Read more about the fascinating history of The Great Moon Hoax on our blog. Rather listen to a podcast? The memory palace has an episode that might be of interest.

This is the Moon by Cothren, Marion B. Illustrated by Kurt Wiese. New York: Coward-McCann. (87 p.) 25 cm. Cloth, DJ. 1946. (from Dreams of Space)

What Earth if the Moon were a giant disco ball

Jim Salvati