# 1950's Depictions of the Moon's Surface-Why So Wrong? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 1, 2013, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752 "2013-01-01T16:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/1 "2013-01-01T16:04:06Z")
If you look at astronomy books from the 1950’s, the Moon’s surface is usually depicted as looking like Iceland-jagged mountain peaks, ravines, and sharply defined craters. When the Apollo astronauts landed, they found the surface of the moon to be gently rolling hills-no volcanic peaks or jagged mountains. Why did the astronomers of that era get it so wrong? Was it assumed that the Moon was still geologically active? Or was it just artistic license? Mars turned out to be totally different, too. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/2 "2013-01-01T16:12:40Z")
I think it’s because of the light angles and shadows upon the craters and mountains can give the appearance of jagged peaks trough a telescope. Given the moon’s 14 days from sunrise to sunset. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/3 "2013-01-01T16:22:26Z")
The difference between observing things with an Earth-bound telescope and viewing it firsthand at ground zero. Observations of the Moon are best made when the Sun is low over its horizon, casting dramatic shadows and exaggerating the relief. Astronomers also pretty much failed to take the erosive effects of drastic temperature changes and bombardment by the solar wind into account. Mars is way too far away for anything other than the most basic of observations. Even with the largest telescopes of the time, the surface of the planet was poorly resolved. Keep in mind, this was long before orbital scopes like the Hubble (which aren’t subject to distortions caused by the Earth’s atmosphere) and computer modeling and enhancement. Also, prior to the Viking missions in the early '70s, there was no evidence of liquid water or geological activity on Mars. I remember how revolutionary it was to discover the volcanoes and water-cut channels on its surface; apparently, no one had ever stopped to consider how vulcanism operates under conditions of low gravity either. The sizes of the first volcanoes observed were mind-blowing. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/4 "2013-01-01T16:29:30Z")
Wouldn’t it be because mountains and ravines are not good landing grounds? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/5 "2013-01-01T16:30:54Z")
With respect to the above, I don’t think they even _knew_ about the solar wind until the Van Allen belts were detected in the late '50s, and they started piecing things together. Still, I’m sure they were aware of the high radiation levels in cislunar space. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/6 "2013-01-01T16:35:54Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Wouldn’t it be because mountains and ravines are not good landing grounds? The later Apollo missions made it a point to land closer to interesting geological formations, and the Moon buggies offered the capability to travel well beyond the landing sites. Nothing that was encountered looked even remotely like a Charlie Bonestell painting: [http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/bonestell\_2\_gamma.JPG](http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/bonestell_2_gamma.JPG) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/7 "2013-01-01T16:39:36Z")
Looking at that painting, I’m reminded that such mountains on Earth are the result of plate teconics, which (so far as I know) never played any part in forming the lunar surface. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/8 "2013-01-01T16:52:03Z")
They got it wrong because there was no way to know the reality. They guessed, that’s all. And they got it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/9 "2013-01-01T16:58:00Z")
I suspect that older depictions were based on the premise that the moon had no weather, changing seasons, wind, or running water, the main forces that erode rocks on Earth and which smooth away rough edges, so it was assumed that in that inactive vacuum of space rocks would retain whatever sharp edges they got when they were formed or broken. How much this reflects scientific thought of the day, and how much is the product of the illustrator’s imagunation, I do not know. I’m not sufficiently up on seleography and geologic (selenologic?) processes to say what formed the lunar surface, although I suspect lots of micrometeoric impacts for rounding off all those corners. Nevertheless, there is still some accuracy to the image of a rough-edged moon. The copious lunar regolith covering the surface may look like earth sand, but I understand that it is very much more rough and abrasive precisely because it retains all those non-weathered and rounded sharp edges on the individual grains. Sand on earth gets abraded against iself by the action of waves and running water and wind, but nothing on the moon moves them around like that. So, on a microscopic scale, that old picture may still be accurate. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/10 "2013-01-01T17:34:20Z")
Micrometeorites did indeed play a major role in erosion of the surface, along with drastic temperature changes and the solar wind. That’s what “weather” on the Moon is like. Never considered the fractal aspect of lunar soil particles. Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/11 "2013-01-01T17:37:23Z")
As least they did better then their imaginations about Venus. A cloudy jungle covered world inhabited by dinosaurs, rather then the superheated hell that it really is. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/12 "2013-01-02T00:06:13Z")
Could it be because safe landing places are not jagged mountain peaks? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/13 "2013-01-02T15:59:24Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > As least they did better then their imaginations about Venus. > > A cloudy jungle covered world inhabited by dinosaurs, rather then the superheated hell that it really is. Yes..two highly respected astronomers of the 1950’s (Drs. Whipple and Menzel) even postulated that Venus was covered in a world ocean..through which swam all manner of beasts. Amazing how little was known in the 1950’s-even with the tools they had, astronomers didn’t know a great deal more in 1950, than in 1920. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/14 "2013-01-02T20:40:33Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The later Apollo missions made it a point to land closer to interesting geological formations, and the Moon buggies offered the capability to travel well beyond the landing sites… The moon buggy didn’t carry astronauts beyond walking distance of the lander; it’s purpose was to enable them to collect more samples, not travel farther. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/15 "2013-01-02T21:02:20Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > The moon buggy didn’t carry astronauts beyond walking distance of the lander; it’s purpose was to enable them to collect more samples, not travel farther. So, you are saying the early astronauts collected samples from just as far away from the lander as the later moon buggy enable ones, but the early ones just collected few pounds or fewer samples? Thats not what I recall. They didn’t get beyond (long) walking distance because it wasn’t safe. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/16 "2013-01-02T21:29:38Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > So, you are saying the early astronauts collected samples from just as far away from the lander as the later moon buggy enable ones, but the early ones just collected few pounds or fewer samples? Thats not what I recall. They didn’t get beyond (long) walking distance because it wasn’t safe. Not what I remember, either. At all. I think that, like all EVAs, moonwalking was restricted by oxygen supply; plus, the astronauts would have been limited to gathering whatever samples they could carry on their persons. The buggy gave them a much wider range of exploration by speeding up the process and being able to carry substantial amounts of samples. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/17 "2013-01-02T21:33:37Z")
For the record, Mariner was the first series of probes to send back data on Mars; these are the ones I remember from when I was in high school. Viking came a few years later and actually landed on the planet: [http://airandspace.si.edu/etp/mars/explore.html](http://airandspace.si.edu/etp/mars/explore.html) ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/18 "2013-01-03T01:33:52Z")
I vote it was 100% artistic license and has been since the green cheese days. The actual lunarscape is not visually exciting and unlikely to inspire anyone to read the comic book or dream of space travel. The majority of Africa doesn’t look like what’s portrayed in the movies and we landed a man there back in the mid-1800s. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/19 "2013-01-07T22:10:12Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > I vote it was 100% artistic license and has been since the green cheese days. The actual lunarscape is not visually exciting and unlikely to inspire anyone to read the comic book or dream of space travel. The majority of Africa doesn’t look like what’s portrayed in the movies and we landed a man there back in the mid-1800s. The thing is, no one knew what the lunar landscape actually looked like until Apollo 11 in 1969. It’d be artistic license from ignorance and a best guess, like someone today attempting to illustrate a vista from the surface of Io (pretending we don’t have topology data). ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2013, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752/20 "2013-01-08T10:09:08Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > The thing is, no one knew what the lunar landscape actually looked like until Apollo 11 in 1969. > > It’d be artistic license from ignorance and a best guess, like someone today attempting to illustrate a vista from the surface of Io (pretending we don’t have topology data). I’m fairly certain that there were unmanned probes before Apollo 11, and Apollo 8 was close enough to show us what it looked like. I understand your point but would be surprised that a telescope couldn’t differentiate between tall jagged peaks or soft rolling mounds. I think the default look for all extraterrestrial landscape in media would be stalagmite-type structures. They’re just more interesting to look at. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1950s-depictions-of-the-moons-surface-why-so-wrong/645752.md?page=2)