Abstract
When Galileo first turned his telescope toward the sky, he made two major discoveries. One, the four large moons of Jupiter, is justly famous. The other, less familiar, is perhaps more important historically. He saw the Moon with enough resolution to conclude that it is not a ‘heavenly body’ as that term was understood, made of perfect and everlasting heavenly stuff, but a rough, cratered object more like the Earth — a real world rather than a figment of the human imagination. Its study moved from the field of theology to that of natural philosophy, now called science.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baldwin, R.K. (1948). The Face of the Moon, University of Chicago Press.
Beer, W. and Mädler, J.H. (1837). Der Mond, Simon Schropp, Berlin.
Darwin, G.H. (1880). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 171, 713–891.
Dolginov, S.S., Yeroshenko, Y.G., Zhuzgov, L.L. and Zhulin, I.A. (1967). A study of the magnetic field of the Moon. Geomagnetizm I Aeronomiya, 7, 436.
Gilbert, G.K. (1893). The Moon’s face, Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, 12, 241.
Jaffe, L.D. (1967). Lunar surface exploration by Surveyor spacecraft. Journal of Geophysical Research, 72, 773–778.
Jaffe, L.D. (1969). The Surveyor lunar landings. Science, 164, 774–788.
Jeffreys, H. (1924). The Earth, Cambridge University Press.
Kopal, Z. (1969). The Moon, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Lebedinsky, A.I., Krasnopolsky, V.A., Krysko, A.A., Aleshin, G.M., Iorenas, V.A., Selivanos, A.M. and Zasetsky, V.V. (1967). In A. Dollfus (ed.), Moon and Planets (Proc. 7th COSPAR Symp.), North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp. 59–70.
Turkevich, A., Franzgrote, E.J. and Patterson, J.H. (1967). Chemical composition of the lunar surface. Science, 158, 635.
Urey, H. (1952). The Planets, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arnold, J.R. (2001). The Moon before Apollo. In: Bleeker, J.A.M., Geiss, J., Huber, M.C.E. (eds) The Century of Space Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0320-9_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0320-9_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-7196-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0320-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive