Meteoric astronomy: A treatise on shooting-stars, fire-balls, and aerolites

by Daniel Kirkwood

The Lunar Theory.

The theory which regards meteoric stones as products of eruption in lunar volcanoes was received with favor by the celebrated Laplace: "As the gravity at the surface of the moon," he remarks, "is much less than at the surface of the earth, and as this body has no atmosphere which can oppose a sensible resistance to the motion of projectiles, we may conceive that a body projected with a great force, by the explosion of a lunar volcano, may attain and pass the limit, where the attraction of the earth commences to predominate over that of the moon. For this purpose it is sufficient that its initial velocity in the direction of the vertical may be 2500 meters in a second; then in place of falling back on the moon, it becomes a satellite of the earth, and describes about it an orbit more or less elongated. The direction of its primitive impulsion may be such as to make it move directly toward the atmosphere of the earth; or it may not attain it, till after several and even a great number of revolutions; for it is evident that the action of the sun, which changes in a sensible manner the distances of the moon from the earth, ought to produce in the radius vector of a satellite which moves in a very eccentric orbit, much more considerable variations, and thus at length so diminish the perigean distance of the satellite, as to make it penetrate our atmosphere. This body traversing it with a very great velocity, and experiencing a very sensible resistance, might at length precipitate itself on the earth; the friction of the air against its surface would be sufficient to inflame it, and make it detonate, provided that it contained ingredients proper to produce these effects, and then it would present to us all those phenomena which meteoric stones exhibit. If it was satisfactorily proved that they are not produced by volcanoes, or generated in our atmosphere, and that their cause must be sought beyond it, in the regions of the heavens, the preceding hypothesis, which likewise explains the identity of composition observed in meteoric stones, by an identity of origin, will not be devoid of probability."—Système du Monde, t. ii. cap. v.

Knowing the masses and volumes of the earth and moon, it is easy to estimate the force of gravity at their surfaces, the distance from each to the point of equal attraction, and the force with which a projectile must be thrown from the lunar surface to pass within the sphere of the earth's influence. It has been calculated that an initial velocity of about a mile and a half in a second would be sufficient for this purpose—a force not greater than that known to have been exerted by terrestrial volcanoes. The possibility, therefore, that volcanic matter from our satellite may reach the earth's surface seems fairly admissible.

Since the time of Laplace, several distinguished European astronomers have regarded the lunar hypothesis as more or less probable. It was advocated as recently as 1851 by the late Prof. J. P. Nichol, of Glasgow. This popular and interesting writer, after describing Tycho, a large and well-known lunar crater, from which luminous rays or stripes radiate over a considerable part of the moon's surface, expresses the opinion that that immense cavity was formed by a single tremendous explosion. "Reflecting," he remarks, "on the probable suddenness and magnitude of that force, or rather of that explosive energy one of whose acts we have traced, as well as on the immense mass of matter which seems to have been thus violently dispersed, is not the inquiry a natural one, where is that matter now? It is a mass indeed which cannot well have wholly disappeared. It filled a cavern 55 miles in breadth, and 17,000 feet deep—a cavern into which even now one might cast Chimborazo and Mont Blanc, and room be left for Teneriffe behind! Like rocks flung aloft by our volcanoes, did this immense mass fall back in fragments to the surface of the moon, or was the expulsive force strong enough to give it an outward velocity sufficient to resist the attractive power of its parent globe? The moon, be it recollected, is very small in mass compared with the earth, and her attractive energy greatly inferior accordingly. Laplace has even calculated that the force urging a cannon-ball, increased to a degree quite within the limits of what is conceivable, could effect a final separation between our satellite and any of its component parts. It is possible then, and, although not demonstrable, very far from a chimera, that the disrupted and expelled masses were, in the case of which we are speaking, driven conclusively into space; but if so, where are they now? where their new residence, and what their functions? In the emergency to which I refer, such fragments would necessarily wander among the interplanetary spaces in most irregular orbits, and chiefly in the neighborhood of the moon and the earth. Now, while the planetary orbits are so nicely adjusted that neither confusion nor interference can ever occur, it is not at all likely that the same order could be established here; nay, it is next to certain, that in the course of its orbital revolution our globe would ever and anon come in contact with these lunar fragments; in other words, STONES would fall occasionally to its surface, and apparently from its atmosphere."—Planetary System, pp. 301, 302.

We have preferred to give the views of these eminent scientists in their own language. Olbers, Biot, and Poisson, who adopted the same theory, estimated the initial velocity which would be necessary in order that lunar fragments might pass the point of equal attraction, and also the final, or acquired velocity on reaching the earth's surface. The several determinations of the former were as follows:

According to Olbers	1·570 miles a second.
According to Biot	1·569 miles a second.
According to Laplace	1·483 miles a second.
According to Poisson	1·437 miles a second.

The mean being almost exactly a mile and a half. The velocity on reaching our planet, according to Olbers, would be about six and a half miles. At the date of these calculations, however, the true velocity of aerolites had not been in any case satisfactorily determined. Since that time it has been found in numerous instances to exceed twenty miles a second—a velocity greater than that of the earth's orbital motion. This fact of itself would seem fatal to the theory of a lunar origin.

At the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1859, Dr. B. A. Gould read a paper on the supposed lunar origin of aerolites, in which the hypothesis was subjected to the test of a rigid mathematical analysis. We will not attempt even an abstract of this interesting memoir. It amounts, however, to a virtual disproof of the lunar hypothesis.