Lunar Approach

Imaginative scientists have cold-bloodedly figured out a number of ways in which the world may come to an end. One of the remotest is thermodynamic equilibrium ("heat-death") of the whole universe. Another which may be only a few billion years off is freezing due to solar exhaustion. One which might happen any day is incineration of Earth by the sun's blowing up as a nova or "new star." Last week in London a less familiar world-finish was suggested before the Royal Institution by Sir James Hopwood Jeans, whose popular appeal derives in large part from his ability to be imaginative and scientifically sound at the same time.

In Through Space & Time (TIME, Nov. 19. 1934) Sir James showed how the moon, spiraling gradually closer to Earth, must eventually be broken up by Earth's gravitation. One of Jupiter's little satellites, for example, is so close to that big planet's gravitational "danger zone" that it is egg-shaped. Sir James made it clear last week that the lunar approach will be no harmless display for earthlings.

In 36,000,000 years the moon will be close enough to send 65O-ft. tides surging over the seas four times a year, penning U. S. inhabitants between its eastern and western mountain ranges. When this cold corpse of a satellite has crept 50% closer, a menacing bulge will be sucked out of its earthward face by terrestrial attraction. It will grow to a giant disk covering one-twentieth of the sky, lighting the night with baleful splendor. The lunar mountains, four miles high, will crack and crumble. Earth will shudder, open tremendous crevasses. The rain of moon fragments, falling as meteorites heated by atmospheric friction, will make steaming cauldrons of the seas, a smoking ruin of the land. At 20,000 miles what remains of the moon will break in two. then into successively smaller pieces, some of which, falling into satellitic orbits, will form glowing rings around Earth like those around Saturn. By that time, though, no human eye will be left to see them.

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