Barbicane, to satisfy the desires of his companion, occupied himself with clearing the window at the bottom of the projectile, the one through which they could observe the earth directly. The movable floor which the force of projection had sent to the bottom was taken to pieces, not without difficulty; its pieces, carefully placed against the sides, might still be of use. Then appeared a circular bay window, half a yard wide, cut in the lower part of the bullet. It was filled with glass five inches thick, strengthened with brass settings. Under it was an aluminium plate, held down by bolts. The screws taken out and the bolts withdrawn, the plate fell back, and visual communication was established between interior and exterior.
Michel Ardan knelt upon the glass. It was dark, and seemed opaque.
"Well," cried he, "but where's the earth?"
"There it is," said Barbicane.
"What!" cried Ardan, "that thin streak, that silvery crescent?"
"Certainly, Michel. In four days' time, when the moon is full, at the very minute we shall reach her, the earth will be new. She will only appear to us under the form of a slender crescent, which will soon disappear, and then she will be buried for some days in impenetrable darkness."
"That the earth!" repeated Michel Ardan, staring at the thin slice of his natal planet.
The explanation given by President Barbicane was correct. The earth, looked at from the projectile, was entering her last quarter. She was in her octant, and her crescent was clearly outlined on the dark background of the sky. Her light, made bluish by the thickness of her atmosphere, was less intense than that of the lunar crescent. This crescent then showed itself under considerable dimensions. It looked like an enormous arch stretched across the firmament. Some points, more vividly lighted, especially in its concave part, announced the presence of high mountains; but they disappeared sometimes under black spots, which are never seen on the surface of the lunar disc. They were rings of clouds placed concentrically round the terrestrial spheroid.
However, by dint of a natural phenomenon, identical with that produced on the moon when she is in her octants, the contour of the terrestrial globe could be traced. Its entire disc appeared slightly visible through an effect of pale light, less appreciable than that of the moon. The reason of this lessened intensity is easy to understand. When this reflection is produced on the moon it is caused by the solar rays which the earth reflects upon her satellite. Here it was caused by the solar rays reflected from the moon upon the earth. Now terrestrial light is thirteen times more intense than lunar light on account of the difference of volume in the two bodies. Hence it follows that in the phenomenon of the pale light the dark part of the earth's disc is less clearly outlined than that of the moon's disc, because the intensity of the phenomenon is in proportion to the lighting power of the two stars. It must be added that the terrestrial crescent seems to form a more elongated curve than that of the disc—a pure effect of irradiation.
Whilst the travellers were trying to pierce the profound darkness of space, a brilliant shower of falling stars shone before their eyes. Hundreds of meteors, inflamed by contact with the atmosphere, streaked the darkness with luminous trails, and lined the cloudy part of the disc with their fire. At that epoch the earth was in her perihelion, and the month of December is so propitious to these shooting stars that astronomers have counted as many as 24,000 an hour. But Michel Ardan, disdaining scientific reasoning, preferred to believe that the earth was saluting with her finest fireworks the departure of her three children.