Heaven at SETI's Doorstep

Public Response and some interesting facts about the moon ••• ••••

  With time, peoples’ enthusiasm blew the incident of the ‘fortnightly signal’ and the forthcoming exploration missions completely out of proportion. Enthusiastic groups including university students made documentary videos illustrating the possible eventualities that we could expect to encounter in the planned exploration. These documentaries contained all manner of imaginary and also mystic scenarios that people could think up. Some of these were very scientific and creative and even threw up ideas that were adopted into the Phase 2 and Phase 3 project thinking. As stated earlier, very many people strongly believed in the possibility of the existence of intelligent beings on the moon. Some people argued that they could be just like human beings. Others said such a possibility could never be and that they would be like the Martian figures that are shown on the cover pages of novels and characters in science fiction movies. The apparel market was flooded with items depicting diverse types of pictures in various colors, patterns and sizes. Especially the youth and children adored these garments. Online sales of the garments were booming. The internet was full of new web sites and blogs covering the subject of living beings on the moon.

  Lunar geology became one of the prime subjects of study, attracting fresh attention of the scientific community. Many articles appeared in the media re-presenting and supplementing the details that were already known to man. To mention a few: The moon is as old as the earth; The lunar landscape is characterized by their ejecta, a few hills, and depressions filled by magma; Most areas are thought to have been formed by lava filled land with hills and valleys; Scientists have estimated that the Moon is twice as far away from the Earth now as it was 4 billion years ago; The moon’s core is still molten; There are many craters; The deepest has been named after Isaac Newton and the depth from peak to floor of this crater is 29,000 feet. Though people knew more about the craters and other geological aspects of the moon’s surface, knowledge of the substrate was extremely limited.

  In 1962, scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, "If the astronomical data are analytically investigated , it is found that the data require the interior of the moon to be more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere." And Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested that there were many, large areas within the Moon that were simply "cavities." MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, "the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field . . . indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow". When objects impact on it, the moon reverberates like a bell - supporting the contention of hollowness - though it may not actually be so. On March 7th, 1971, instruments placed on the lunar surface by the astronauts recorded a vapor cloud of water passing across the surface of the moon. This cloud movement lasted 14 hours and covered an area of about 100 square miles.

  The Moon has a very weak magnetic field. This magnetic field is actually due to the moon rocks and is not related to the metallic core. Moon rocks are found to be magnetized and the exact reason for this has not been established. After hundreds of years of detailed observation and study, the Moon unfortunately continues to remain an enigma. Six moon landings and hundreds of experiments resulted in raising more questions than answers. Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions for these craters to arise.

  The following documented facts about the Moon are presented to broaden understanding of it.

  * The Moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles and orbits the Earth at a mean distance of 238,857 miles. It orbits the Earth in 27.322 days, and always keeps the same side facing the Earth.

  * Because of the lack of an atmosphere, the temperature of the Moon's surface varies between -180°C and +110°C.

  * The moon’s centre of mass is about 6000 feet closer to the Earth than its geometric centre (which should cause wobbling during rotation), but actually the moon’s bulge based on shape is on the far side of the moon, away from the Earth.