Earth's Attic: Our Moon by Elaine Scott

AN ATTIC IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO EXPLORE.

In a way, the moon is like an attic. Closer to Earth than any other object in the solar system, the moon has remained nearly undisturbed since it formed. And like any good attic, our moon has stored clues, but to a much earlier time, billions of years ago, when the solar system was new.

These clues from the moon can give geologists--scientists who study the composition of Earth--information about the earliest days of our planet.

Why study the moon? Why send humans to our moon?

Humans have always wanted to know more about our closest space companion. Ancient storytellers and scientists speculated about the moon from earth. And then advances in technology and powerful geopolitical competition fostered direct examination by humans of the moon's surface during the Apollo missions. Now moon probes and astro-robots from Russia, the U.S, Japan, China, and India have added much to our knowledge, including the 2009 U.S. LCROSS mission which found water encased in lunar rocks. The presence of water is a big deal, making it conceivable that moon colonists could extract drinkable water and extract its components--oxygen to breathe and hydrogen as fuel for heat, light, and return rocket engines.

Why go? One good reason is to find out more about how our Earth formed. Visiting the moon is a time-travel mission, a chance to examine a sort of time capsule of early Earth, to see what the dust and rocks there, unchanged for eons by atmosphere and weathering, can tell us about our planet's beginnings. The prevailing theory is that the moon was formed during the formation of the solar system by the collision of a space object the size of Mars with the Earth. This "impact theory" holds that the explosion sent part of Earth's material into space to form the moon. This means that the moon's rocks are basically those of the infant Earth.

Elaine Scott's forthcoming Our Moon: New Discoveries About Earth's Closest Companion (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2016) is an up-to-date compendium of knowledge about our next-door space neighbor. Scott begins with ancient moon mythology and science about the moon, the scientists and discoveries of the Renaissance--the telescopes and mathematical calculations that introduced the heliocentric solar system and explained the visible phases and eclipses of the moon. Turning to the twentieth century, Scott recounts in some detail the history of great leap in knowledge following the 1959 Luna 2 rocket sent to impact on the moon by the USSR and the Apollo flights and landings,  and the scientists and astronauts who made it all possible.

The author devotes several chapters to the discoveries which returned moon rocks and dust have yielded, revealing much about Earth's history and indeed the history of known space. Special attention is given to the real treasure in attic, the "Genesis Rock," a specimen found by astronauts Scott and Irwin that was determined to be the oldest specimen, far older than any on Earth, at 4.5 billions years, the oldest known rock, a big clue to the mystery of the age of the solar system!

Ample illustrations, some full-spread, appear on each page, with Scott including ancient drawings and moon maps with black-and-white photos from Apollo and color photos from later missions. Text fact boxes, set apart with yellow and blue backgrounds, explain concepts included in the text, and Scott adds a substantial appendix, with a helpful glossary of technical terms, additional reading from selected books and web sites, bibliography, and a very usable index for students working on research papers or just following their own need to know more.

A well-organized and highly accessible text, well written to grab and hold the attention of middle readers and fire the imaginations of scientifically-minded students, this is a standout nonfiction book, a first purchase for school and public libraries or for the space-enthralled trekkie reader.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Moon: Science, History and Mystery by Stewart Ross

It is the inspiration of poets and lovers. It is both the symbol of light overcoming darkness and the patron goddess of the dark and deadly hunt. It is always there, the icon of constancy itself, but one that is ever changing. Its face is as familiar as our own, but it has a dark side few have known. It is both the outermost point of tool-making man's reach and part of the ebb and flow of our innermost physical self, an intrinsic part of the cycle of life.

It is, of course, Earth's one and only Moon.

Stewart Ross's Moon: Science, History, And Mystery (Oxford University Press/Scholastic,) takes on this wonderful object of man's searching nature on the fortieth anniversary of the first manned moon mission. But this book is not solely a recounting of that familiar event. As Ross says in his introduction...

The Eagle did not land against a purely scientific backdrop. Since the beginning of time, humans have been in awe of the Moon, worshipping it, painting it, writing about it, and even howling to it. Throughout history and prehistory, there has been no more powerful influence on our culture.

Therein lies the wonder of Apollo 11. It was not simply a scientific triumph or human achievement. Rather it was a manifestation of the human spirit in all its bewildering glory.

To do justice to our moon's place in both our human and scientific history, Ross divides his narrative into parallel chapters, beginning with the actual day of the first manned landing as the watching world saw it, from the first announcement of "We have lift off!" to the epic broadcast of the first day's events. Additional chapters continue the story of manned flight to the completion of the moon excursions and the final Apollo splashdown on Earth.

Alternating with his retelling of the history of space flight--from the German V-2 through the space race to the thirteen Apollo missions--Ross also gives the reader a sense of ancient creation tales, diverse mythologies, common and uncommon superstitions, and the long history of man's search for scientific fact about our near neighbor, from the Sumerian astronomers through Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton to modern probes and missions and our plans for future moon expeditions and study.

Illustrated lavishly with historic prints, paintings, and sumptuous photographs, dotted with quotations and eye-catching text boxes, and backed up with ample appendices, Moon: Science, History, And Mystery is a journey in itself, a beautifully diverse collection of eye candy, an easy-going science book, and a glorious compendium of human history and culture shaped by the moon. Middle and young adult readers can use it as a straightforward history of the the space program which culminated in the first moon landing or as a narrative which puts that signal event in perspective within its human roots in prehistory, myth, and imagination.