Luna

Luna
Aliases:	Earth's moon
Category:	Moon
Galaxy:	Milky Way Galaxy
System:	Sol system
Sector:	Alpha Quadrant
Residents:	Selenites
1st appearance:	Somnium

Luna is the official name used when referring to Earth's moon. The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. It is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, a quarter the diameter of Earth and 1/81 its mass, and is the second densest satellite after Io. It is in synchronous rotation with Earth, always showing the same face; the near side is marked with dark volcanic maria among the bright ancient crustal highlands and prominent impact craters. It is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun, although its surface is actually very dark, with a similar reflectance to coal. Its prominence in the sky and its regular cycle of phases have since ancient times made the Moon an important cultural influence on language, the calendar, art and mythology. The Moon's gravitational influence produces the ocean tides and the minute lengthening of the day. The Moon's current orbital distance, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth, causes it to be the same size in the sky as the Sun—allowing the Moon to cover the Sun precisely in total solar eclipses.

History

The Moon is the only celestial body on which humans have made a manned landing. While the Soviet Union's Luna program was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar orbiting mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972—the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. These missions returned over 380 kg of lunar rocks, which have been used to develop a detailed geological understanding of the Moon's origins (it is thought to have formed some 4.5 billion years ago in a giant impact), the formation of its internal structure, and its subsequent history.

Since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by unmanned spacecraft, notably by Soviet Lunokhod rovers. Since 2004, Japan, China, India, the United States, and the European Space Agency have each sent lunar orbiters. These spacecraft have contributed to confirming the discovery of lunar water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the poles and bound into the lunar regolith. Future manned missions to the Moon are planned but not yet underway; the Moon remains, under the Outer Space Treaty, free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes.

Appearances

The earliest known appearance of Earth's moon was in the 17th century manuscript Somnium by Johannes Kepler. In the story an Icelandic witch named Fioxlhilda claimed to have gained occult power from a demon who resided on the moon. She told the tale to her son, a student of Tycho Brahe named Duracotus. During a Solar Eclipse, lunar demons were able to travel the distance between the Earth and the Moon via a bridge of darkness. Intrigued by the story, Duracotus allowed himself to be transported to the moon by the lunar demons. To ease his journey he was given a drowsing draught and moist sponges to hold under his nose. He was carried to the point of neutral gravity between the Earth and Moon, then allowed to drift down to the lunar surface.

Jules Verne

The "Man in the Moon" from A Trip to the Moon (1902).

The moon was the central plot device behind the 1865 Jules Verne novel From the Earth to the Moon - a book that is largely considered to be one of the earliest and most provincial works in the genre. In Verne's tale, Impey Barbicane, president of a society known as the Gun Club proposes an ambitious plan to construct a device that can project a human subject out of Earth's orbit and onto the moon. He develops a Columbiad cannon using funds raised by various nations in support of the project. Despite longstanding rivalries, Barbicane embarks on the journey along with Philadelphia gunsmith Captain Nicholl and French adventurer Michel Arden and successfully breaks Earth's orbit en route to the moon. Their adventures continued in Verne's 1870 novel Around the Moon.

In 1902, French filmmaker Georges Méliès produced a 14-minutes film short loosely based on Verne's From the Earth to the Moon entitled A Trip to the Moon. The film is widely regarded as being the first science fiction movie and is famous for it's visual effects used in creating the "Man in the Moon".

H.G. Wells

The First Men in the Moon
English author H.G. Wells wrote several science fiction novels, including the 1901 book The First Men in the Moon. The book chronicles the adventures of a businessman named Bedford and an eccentric scientist named Doctor Cavor who creates an anti-gravity compound which he dubs Cavorite. Cavor believed that he can construct a spherical space vessel out of Cavorite and convinces Bedford to accompany him on a journey to the moon. When they arrive, they find that the topography of the moon consists of dense jungles and they discover an underground insectoid race which Cavor calls Selenites. Stircken by their appearance, the two kill several Selenites while trying to escape. Bedford makes it back to the Cavorite sphere and returns to Earth, but Cavor is captured. During his imprisonment, he learns that the Selenites are a remarkably intelligent race who evolve and adapt based upon their societal needs. Cavor begins sending radio transmissions to Bedford on Earth, but when the Selenites learn about humanity's propensity for war, they cease sending broadcasts.

Theatrical poster for Nathan Juran's First Men in the Moon.

The First Men in the Moon was first adapted to film in 1919 by a UK production company, Gaumont British Pictures Corporation. It was directed by Bruce Gordon and J.L.V. Leigh and starred Gordon, Heather Thatcher, Hector Abbas, Lionel d'Aragon and Cecil Morton York. The first major film adaptation of Wells' novel was in 1964 with Nathan Juran's First Men in the Moon. The script was written by Nigel Kneale and Jan Read and featured the stop-motion animation effects of visual wizard Ray Harryhausen.

A radio dramatization of The First Men in the Moon was produced in 1997 and broadcast in Las Vegas, Nevada. The dramtization featured the voice talents of several key Star Trek actors including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, John de Lancie, Ethan Phillips and Dwight Schultz.

The BBC produced a direct-to-video adaptation of The First Men in the Moon in 2010. The film was directed by Damon Thomas and written by Mark Gatiss. It starred Rory Kinnear as Mister Bedford and Mark Gatiss as Doctor Cavor.

Several of H.G. Wells' ideas were incorporated into Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman comic book series. In the first volume, the infamous Sax Rohmer villain Fu Manchu steals a large volume of the Cavorite mineral and uses it to create a fleet of floating war ships.

009-1

In the anime series 009-1, a summit was hosted on the moon to settle differences between two Cold War factions, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. The Western Bloc's administrator, Lyudmila Schindler, kidnapped a defecting scientist named Zond Soyuz who possessed knowledge of a weapon of mass destruction that would have given their faction a considerable advantage over their Eastern Bloc counterparts. Fortunately, the Number Nine Group intercepted the weapon before the lunar summit could take place.

Space: 1999

The moon played a major role in the 1975-1978 British science fiction television series Space: 1999. It served as the central setting for the series and has appeared in all forty-eight episodes of the show beginning with the pilot episode, "Breakaway". It was the location of the scientific research facility known as Moonbase Alpha. For years, the Dark Side of the Moon has served as a dumping ground for Earth's radioactive waste. On September 13th, 1999, a tragic accident caused the radioactive isotopes in the nuclear stockpile to explode. The detonation was so strong that it actually broke the moon from it's orbit, sending it hurtling through outer space. The surviving personnel of Moonbase Alpha, which included 311 command crew, scientists, medical staff, technicians and mission operatives were now stranded on the base. The ninth and final commander of Moonbase Alpha was Commander John Koenig, who had only recently arrived to accept command of the station.

Thundarr

The moon played a minor, yet memorable role in the 1980-1982 Ruby-Spears Productions animated series Thundarr the Barbarian. As shown in the opening sequence of every episode, a "runaway planet" passed between the Earth and the moon in the year 1994. The proximity of the planet's course caused the moon to split in half, causing global geographical upheaval on the planet Earth.

The Tick

Other examples of the moon suffering intense surface damage include the 1994 animated comedy series The Tick. In the second episode of season one, "The Tick vs. Chairface Chippendale", the titular antagonist Chairface Chippendale attempts to carve his name into the surface of the moon using a giant laser. The heroic Tick succeeds in stopping him, but not before Chairface burns the letters C-H-A across the visible surface of the moon. The giant letters remain clearly visible in every subsequent episode where the moon can be seen.

Hancock

A similar instance of lunar graffiti took place at the end of the 2008 super-hero comedy Hancock. In the closing scene of the film, Will Smith's John Hancock paints a giant "All-Heart" logo across the moon in honor of his friend and publicist Ray Embrey.

Superman

In the 1980 film Superman II, NASA sent a lunar module to the surface of the moon. Three astronauts were terrified to discover that three Kryptonian criminals named General Zod, Ursa and Non had escaped from an interdimensional prison and had gained enhanced, superhuman attributes under Earth's "yellow" sun. Ursa in particular took great delight in demonstrating her physical superiority by tearing away the oxygen hose from one of the astronauts and kicking him across the barren surface. Zod and Non used their newfound abilities to destroy the lunar module.

In the discontinued comic book series JLA, the moon served as the base of operations for the renewed Justice League of America (of which Superman was a member). Their lunar citadel, dubbed the Watchtower, allowed them to monitor activity taking place on Earth, while simultaneously allowing them to operate free of threats from their numerous adversaries. Despite its isolated location however, the JLA Watchtower was frequently attacked by the JLA's foes and ultimately destroyed.

In the alternate continuity of All Star Superman, two spatially displaced Kryptonian astronauts named Bar-El and Lilo-El arrived on Earth during a time that Superman was on the Bizarro World. Frustrated with Superman's seeming inability to properly terraform the Earth, they ultimately got into a fight with him, the result of which was cracking the moon in half. Bar-El and Lilo then repaired the damage by taking suspension bridges from Earth and used heat vision to staple the two halves of the moon back together. Yeah... its just as stupid as it sounds.

Folklore

The phases of the moon are steeped in folklore and play a key part in the study of witches and werewolves. In the Doctor Who mythos, the cycle of the full moon was a key element in defeating an alien entity who had taken the form of a werewolf in Balmoral, Scotland. In 1879, the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler traveled to the Torchwood estate and were able to use a giant telescope to channel the power of the moon in order to destroy the alien werewolf. This incident prompted Queen Victoria to form the Torchwood Institute - a secret society devoted towards investigating cases of the strange and inexplicable.

Points of Interest

Clavius Base

Clavius Base was a fictional scientific research outpost presented in the 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. In both the novel and the film adaptation, National Council of Astronautics chairman, Doctor Heywood R. Floyd, traveled to Clavius Base on a top secret mission to investigate the discovery of an ancient, extraterrestrial Monolith that had been found at Tycho crater.

Clavius Crater

Clavius is the second largest crater on the visible face of Earth's moon and measures 231 kilometers in diameter. It is located in the center of the Southern Highlands region.

Sea of Tranquility

The Sea of Tranquility is a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the Moon. The mare material within the basin consists of basalt formed in the intermediate to young age group of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The surrounding mountains are thought to be of the Lower Imbrian epoch, but the actual basin is probably Pre-Nectarian.

Tycho Crater

Tycho is a prominent lunar impact crater located in the southern lunar highlands, named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. To the south is the crater Street; to the east is Pictet, and to the north-northeast is Sasserides. The surface around Tycho is replete with craters of various sizes, many overlapping still older craters. Some of the smaller craters are secondary craters formed from larger chunks of ejecta from Tycho. In the novel and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tycho was the site of a large, alien Monolith, which came to be known as TMA-1.

Films that feature Luna

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• 2001: A Space Travesty (2000)
• A Trip to the Moon (1902)
• First Men in the Moon (1964)
• Phantom Planet, The

TV shows that feature Luna

• 009-1

• 009-1: Infiltrators

• Outer Limits

• Outer Limits: Moonstone

Comics that feature Luna

• 1st Issue Special 12 - Secret Talokite base under force field.
• All Star Superman 9 - Two Kryptonians crack the moon in half.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Annual 1 - Blue area; Korvac residence; Watcher's crib.
• JLA 4 - JLA Watchtower established.
• Klyde & Meriem 1 - Klyde the gorilla enjoys staring at the moon.
• Man of Steel Vol 2 2

Books that feature Luna

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Around the Moon
• First Men in the Moon, The
• From the Earth to the Moon

Characters from Luna

• Beverly Crusher
• Diana Halvorsen
• Eclipso
• Jordan Korvac
• Michael Korvac
• Myra Korvac

External Links

• Luna at Wikipedia

References

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