How bright the mountains look in the sunshine, and how black their shadows are. That is because there is no air. Notice how very clearly you can see the far-distant mountain ranges. You can scarcely believe me when I tell you that the mountains on either side of that great crater are more than one hundred miles apart. But do you not remember how the mountains on the earth have appeared to us sometimes to be very much nearer than usual? If you asked the reason for this, you were told that it was because the atmosphere happened to be particularly clear. Well! here on the moon we have no air at all and that is why we can see everything so very clearly.

One little girl says that she had been wondering why there is nothing growing on the moon, but now she sees that not even grass, nor moss, nor heather could grow, since there is no air and no water. Not only are the mountains bare rock, but the whole surface of the land is the same.

—From "The Stars and Their Mysteries",
by Charles R. Gibson, F.R.S.E.

Questions

1. Why can no aeroplane ever fly to the moon?

2. How long would it take an aeroplane flying 100 miles an hour to reach the moon?

3. How much farther away is the sun than the moon?

4. Give some idea how far away the fixed stars are.

5. Why is it colder as we rise up in the air?

6. What does the surface of the moon look like?

7. How would the earth look to a person on the moon?

8. How much larger is the earth than the moon?

9. What is the weather on the moon?

10. What is a volcano?

11. Why could you see a long distance on the moon?

12. Why does nothing grow on the moon?

Transcriber's Notes: