To Mars via The Moon

by Mark Wicks

  CHAPTER III

  WE APPROACH THE MOON--A MAGNIFICENT SPECTACLE

  When we had finished our supper John remarked, "Professor, I am a littlemystified in regard to our present position. We have started on a voyageto Mars, but up to the present I have not seen even a glimpse of theplanet to-night. How is that?"

  "Hear, hear," chimed in M'Allister. "Mon, I've been bothering over thevery same thing ever since we started, and wondering where yon littlered star has gone to!"

  "The question is very soon answered," I replied: "it is a case of 'theSpanish fleet you cannot see because it's not in sight.' Mars does notrise above our late horizon until about a quarter-past ten, and wastherefore hidden by the earth whilst we were out on the platform; so wecould not expect to see it then, but if we look out now no doubt weshall see it."

  We went over to a window, and I pointed out the planet, remarking,"There it is; that little red star is the world which we hope to landupon in a few weeks' time. You will notice that it does not lie quite inthe direction in which we are moving, for I must tell you that we arenot on our course to Mars at present. I thought we should all be glad tohave a look at the moon from a close point of view now we have thechance, and M'Allister will remember that I gave him instructions justbefore supper to direct our course so as to head off the moon in itsjourney."

  "Quite right, Professor, so you did," said M'Allister; "but I did notfully understand the reason of your instructions."

  "But," interrupted John, "are we not going rather out of our way?"

  "Yes, that is so, John," I replied, "but a few thousand miles more orless will make very little difference to us at the rate we shall travel,especially if you allow for the fact that the earth and moon are bothmoving nearly in the direction we wish to go. Besides, I hope toapproach sufficiently near the moon to enable us to add a little morepower to our store, so it will not all be lost time; and we can also usethe moon to give us a fresh start. But for the fact that it would bebest for us to reach the moon before it has waned to any large extent wemight have delayed our start for many days, and, whilst considerablyshortening our journey, still arrived at Mars on the date we havefixed."

  Our chronometer was housed in a substantial non-magnetic cubicle, with avery thick glass window, in order to protect it from the magnetism andelectricity which pervaded our vessel. On looking at the chronometer Ifound the time was nearly eleven o'clock. We had, therefore, been nearlytwo hours on our journey and had travelled some three hundred miles,mostly in an upward direction from the earth; so if there were any ofthe earth's atmosphere around our vessel it must be of the most extremetenuity, and we might safely increase our speed.

  I accordingly gave M'Allister the order to switch on the powergradually, up to our full speed, and it was not long before we wererushing through space at the rate of over eighty-three thousand miles anhour. At this rate, as I told them, we might expect to reach the moon ina little over sixteen hours, allowing for loss in slackening down at thelatter part of the journey.

  "It so happens," I said, "that the moon's present distance from theearth is rather less than 226,000 miles, being its nearest approach tothe earth during this month."

  John at once asked, "How it happened that, if the moon were only thiscomparatively short distance away from us, I reckoned it would requireover sixteen hours to reach it at the tremendous speed we were nowmoving"; and added, "I thought we should be there in about three hours."

  "Ah, John," I replied, "you have forgotten that the earth is rushingalong and carrying the moon with it nearly as fast as we are travelling,and you are reckoning as though they were standing still all the time.As a matter of fact we are only gaining on the moon by a little overfifteen thousand miles an hour, and we must allow for slackening speedlong before we reach the moon, so we cannot expect to cover the distancein less than sixteen hours. You will see that if we did not travelfaster than the moon is moving away from us we should never catch it upat all!"

  "That explains it all, Professor," said John, "and I must confess I feltrather puzzled at the length of time required to reach the moon, so wasaltogether out in my calculations."

  After we had been proceeding at this rate for nearly two hours,M'Allister came hurrying into our compartment in a state of greatexcitement.

  "Professor," he exclaimed with a gasp, "something's gone wrongaltogether, and I don't know what to do!"

  "Gone wrong!" I repeated. "Why, what is the matter?"

  "Mon," he answered, "everything is the matter! A while back we wererushing towards the moon, but just now when I looked ahead there wasn'tany moon to be seen. I happened to go round to the other window and lookback and, my word! if there wasn't the moon right behind us! We havebeen travelling so very fast that we must have run past it withoutknowing we had done so."

  "Oh, we could not possibly have done that!" I exclaimed.

  "But there's more to come, Professor," continued M'Allister. "When Ilast saw the moon it was nearly full and not so very much bigger thanwhen we saw it at starting, but now this moon behind us is an enormousthing; yet it is only a new moon, or rather what folks call a new moonwith the old moon in its arms!"

  "Oh, now I understand," I replied. "It's all right, M'Allister, and youcan make your mind quite easy. You were not able to see the moon whenyou first looked through the window because it was nearly in a directline with your course, and therefore just hidden by the prow of thevessel. It's still ahead of us and still nearly full: if you had lookedout of the conning tower or used the periscope you would have seen it."

  "Heh, Professor," he interjected, "I know I couldn't see the moon if itwas straight ahead of our course, but then what about that enormous newmoon that's behind us? I saw that right enough."

  "That enormous new moon, M'Allister, is only our own little world whichwe left a few hours ago," I replied.

  He stared at me as though bewildered, and after pondering a while,exclaimed, "Losh, mon, you surely don't mean to say that our own littleworld changes about in the same way as the moon does--sometimes new andsometimes full?"

  Here John interposed. "Yes, M'Allister, you can take it from me that itis just what our world does do. I think you are aware that, like themoon, our world simply reflects the light it receives from the sun, anddoes not shine by its own light. So one side is light and the other sideis dark, according to its position in regard to the sun. From ourpresent position we are only able to see a small portion of the lightedside, the remainder being dark except for the moonlight shining upon it,so it looks just like a large new moon. It really serves as a moon toour moon, but its phases follow each other in reverse order. Thus, whenthe moon is full, the earth's disc is all dark, and when the moon is inits first quarter the earth, as seen from there, would be in its thirdquarter, and so on through all its phases. Do you follow all that,M'Allister?"

  "Well, mon," replied M'Allister, with a sly grin, "I've just heard yousay it; but"--and here he turned to me--"is it all correct, Professor?"

  "Yes, quite correct," I answered, greatly amused at his distrust ofJohn's statements.

  "M'Allister, you're like the Apostle Thomas," commented John, evidentlya little nettled; "so you really doubted my word after all!"

  "Heh, mon," he answered, "you're not the Professor, you know; and Ithought maybe you were pulling my leg!"

  "Well," laughed John, "perhaps you _will_ get your leg pulled the nexttime I condescend to give you a lesson in astronomy!"

  After this little spar between my two colleagues we proceeded to themachine-room, which John and I carefully inspected, to make sure thatall was working properly; and having satisfied ourselves on this point,we gave M'Allister his instructions for the 'night'; though of coursethere was no night now.

  Mounting the steps of the conning turret, we then had a look at theearth, from which we were so rapidly moving away. It appeared aboutfifteen degrees in angular diameter, showing that we had travelled somethirty thousand miles from it.

  The full moon, as seen from
the earth, appears just about half a degreein diameter--sometimes a little more, sometimes rather less; so theearth was apparently about thirty times the diameter the moon usuallyappears to us. It was only a thin crescent where lighted by the sun, butwell might M'Allister describe it as "enormous," for it appeared stilllarger to him when he saw it some thirty minutes earlier and mistook itfor the new moon.

  When we came down again John, very thoughtfully, said to me, "Professor,you have had a very long, tiring day; and when we reach the moon, weshall probably stay up several hours to look at it, so you had bettertake as long a sleep as possible. There will be no need to break yourrest, for I'm the younger, and will get about by six o'clock, andrelieve M'Allister, who can go on all right up to then, as he has threehours less work to his credit than we have to-day. If your advice isneeded, I will call you at once; but, no doubt, we shall do very welltill we arrive within a few thousand miles of the moon. We will slackenspeed very gradually from about two o'clock in the afternoon, so as notto approach the orb too rapidly."

  I had, indeed, as he said, had a long, tiring day, having risen soonafter four o'clock yesterday morning, and it was now nearly 2 "A.M." byterrestrial time; so, thanking him for his kind consideration, I badethem both "good night," and gladly proceeded to bed, John following soonafter.

  He was as good as his word, and actually allowed me to sleep on untilnearly half-past three in the "afternoon," when he roused me, and,having dressed, I snatched a hasty meal and then at once proceeded tothe machine-room, where my first act was to look at the moon. There itwas below us, but still slightly ahead of the _Areonal_; and itsmagnificence was so overpowering, that it almost seemed to take mybreath away, although I was fairly well prepared for the sight. Manytimes when viewing it through the telescope I have almost lost myself inadmiration of the sublime spectacle it presents; but what I had seen onthose occasions could not be compared with the splendour of the view nowbefore us.

  Here, without any atmosphere to dim or otherwise mar the view, thebrilliancy of the lighted portion of the disc was absolutely dazzling,whilst the extreme delicacy of its varied tints and the subtle nuancesof colour, which we now saw to perfection, were most charming anddelightful to any one endowed with artistic perceptions. We were onlyabout four thousand miles from this beautiful orb, its angular diametermeasuring about thirty degrees, or nearly sixty times its apparentdiameter, as seen from the earth; thus it appeared to cover a very largecircle on the sky.

  John and M'Allister told me they had both been gazing upon the splendidscene for a very long time with astonishment and delight equal to myown; and the latter went on to say, "Professor, did you ever see such asight in your life? I never did, and could never have imagined thatanything could be so beautiful! Mon, it's worth many a journey like thisto see such a bonnie thing!"

  "You are quite right in saying that, M'Allister," I answered; "it is,indeed, a grand and marvellous sight! I can assure you that when I havebeen observing the moon in its full and glowing splendour, it has oftenseemed to me the most exquisitely beautiful object I have ever lookedupon; yet now it appears far more beautiful than when seen through thetelescope!"