 |
Book Review, "The Modern Moon" |
Posted by Bob Vickers, Feb 15, 2007
Book Review of Charles A. Wood’s The Modern Moon: A Personal PerspectiveBy Bob Vickers
Despite being an avid deep sky observer, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the Moon. This may sound like heresy to some of my deep sky colleagues but I can’t help it. I am a product of my time. I was fifteen years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot upon the Moon; an impressionable age. Just entering high school, I was old enough to understand some of the engineering and science, and for the next three and a half years I avidly followed every mission, every moonwalk, every step taken and rock collected. I wanted to be an astronaut! But, life had other plans.
The Apollo missions did, however, inspire me to build my first telescope. It was a six-inch Newtonian reflector, which I immediately put to use observing (what else?) the Moon. In the years that followed, my interests broadened to encompass the planets and ultimately the deep sky, but the Moon was my first love.
I purchased The Modern Moon (available from Sky Publishing Corporation for $44.95) in 2005, a couple of years after it was first published, but it lingered in my “to read” stack until just a few months ago. Nevertheless, when I finally read the book I was impressed enough to write a belated review.
Many amateur astronomers are very familiar with the stunningly beautiful and detailed features of the Moon, having observed them many times, but actually have little or no understanding of what they are looking at or how those features came to be. Charles Wood’s book is an attempt to remedy that situation. In his own words: “The ideal book (which of course this strives to be) integrates the strong sense of place and awe that traditional telescopic observers felt for the Moon, with a knowledge and understanding of how the Moon formed and evolved.”
Wood holds a Ph.D. in planetary geology from Brown University and has specialized in the study of impact cratering and volcanism throughout the solar system. Since 1999 he has also written the Lunar Notebook column (now evolved into Exploring the Moon) for Sky and Telescope magazine. At the same time The Modern Moon was published, Wood also introduced his Lunar 100. This list of observable lunar features and their corresponding Exploring the Moon articles amount to a course in lunar “geology,” and dovetails quite nicely with the book. Other books authored or coauthored by Wood include Volcanoes of North America: United States and Canada and the Astronaut’s Guide to Terrestrial Impact Craters. He also maintains a website at www.lpod.org/cwm/.
Wood is very readable. He has a clear and lucid writing style sprinkled with occasional wry humor. This hardback book measures 9 inches by 12 inches and consists of 19 chapters covering 209 pages. There are many photographs and illustrations throughout the book, all black and white. If I have one complaint it might be the lack of any color pictures, but the Moon isn’t exactly flush with vivid color and the book does not seem to suffer much from this omission. In the introduction, Wood recommends several other books and atlases for further reading, covering both the scientific and the human sides of lunar study and exploration. He also provides a list of “Who’s Who” in lunar science from the sixteenth century to the present day. Chapter one is a short orientation, an introductory lesson on how to observe the Moon. Although it is not an observing guide as such, you can choose to follow along at the telescope and observe the features the author describes in the book. He recommends observing, and so do I. Chapter two contains a descriptive morphology of impact craters, from the smallest and simplest to the giant impact basins. It also introduces the concept of lunar volcanism and lava flows. Together, cratering and lava flows account for most visible lunar features. Unlike most books and atlases on the Moon, the heart of this book (chapters three through eighteen) is organized geographically by “…scientifically meaningful regions of various sizes and shapes,” each region with its own chapter. Contributions of the Apollo missions are discussed along with those of the various robotic missions. In chapter nineteen, the final chapter, Wood defends the importance of past lunar study (especially the Apollo missions) and makes his case for future exploration. He is obviously an enthusiastic proponent of lunar study and of a return of humans to the moon.
Wood references the works of many scientists as well as amateur astronomers in his coverage of the history of lunar study. He gives praise where praise is due but is not afraid to relate some of their more “off-the-wall” ideas (many of which don’t sound so “off-the-wall” when they are taken in the context of the prevailing attitudes of their time.) An interesting example is the notion that the lunar mare (the dark colored areas of the Moon) were nothing but vast deep bowls of dust that visiting spacecraft from earth would sink into, never to be seen again. This idea, proposed by Thomas Gold, a brilliant and respected physicist, seems ridiculous to us today, but NASA took it quite seriously right up until the landing of the first Surveyor spacecraft in June of 1966.
In conclusion, I recommend this book to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the formation and evolution of the Moon as an astronomical body over the past 4.5 billion years. For the aesthetic observer or layman it provides a not-too-technical explanation of lunar history, and for the serious student it will serve as a stepping-stone to more scholarly treatments. As Wood says: “The Moon is an enchantment, made more – not less – remarkable by our modern understanding of it. If you are susceptible to the wonders of the Moon, then this book is for you.”
