Word: moons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Because It's There. Surveyor I and Lunar Orbiter II have illumined the moon as being little more than an ugly grey rock pile. So why send a man to see for himself? The geologist wants it done because he hopes to find clues to when and how the earth came to be. The biologist wants to know if there are any vestiges of existence there that might solve the riddle of what life really is. The astronomer hopes that a definitive look at the moon could help unlock the secret of how the solar system was formed...
Although the moon has lately been giving up many of its ancient secrets to prying spacecraft, it has clung stubbornly to one-the genesis of its own existence as an earth satellite. With monotonous regularity, scientists have punched holes in theories that the moon was torn, Eve-like, from the earth's side; that the earth and moon condensed simultaneously, as neighbors, from the same blob of primordial dust; or that the moon was a planetary interloper accidentally captured by the earth's gravity. Says Nobel Laureate Chemist Harold Urey: "All explanations for the origin of the moon...
...University of Miami scientist with credentials in the field of cosmogony-has resurrected one of the old theories and given it a new twist that he feels will enable it to pass the mathematical and dynamical tests its predecessors failed. Physicist S. (for Siegfried) Fred Singer suggests that the moon first evolved as a minor planet, independent of the earth and following its own orbit around the sun. About four billion years ago, he believes, its path carried it on a near-collision course with the earth, which at that time was an atmosphereless orb revolving once every five hours...
...gravitational force of the new satellite was so powerful that it raised great "tides" in the solid earth, literally causing it to bulge in the direction of the moon (a smaller bulge was raised on the opposite side of the earth). Because the moon moved more slowly across the sky when it was at its far-out apogee than the surface of the earth revolved below it, the bulge tended to lead the moon. Its gravity thus pulled forward on the moon. At perigee, when the moon was moving across the sky faster than the earth's rotation...
Pock-Marked Face. The lunar tides when the moon was near produced friction and violent heating of the interior and surface layers of the earth, Singer believes. This could well have led to the sudden degassing of rocks, volcanic activity and the creation of an atmosphere that probably consisted of water vapor, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Thus, the capture of the moon by the earth may well have produced an atmosphere much earlier in the earth's history than anyone had heretofore believed- and led to the evolution of life itself. Terrestrial gravity had an even more spectacular effect...