Moon Markings

As seen through a big telescope rather than by young lovers, the moon resembles a shell-battered World War I battleground. Clusters of craters are scattered across the satellite's cracked, rugged face like smallpox scars. Many are ringed by mountains up to 20,000 ft. high; some are more than 100 miles across and four miles deep. What caused these lunar markings? Astronomers advance two theories: the craters are 1) the shells of extinct volcanos, or 2) the result of meteorite bombardments some 4 billion years ago.

A radically new explanation is now offered by one of the nation's top astronomers, Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper of the University of Chicago. After almost a year's moon-gazing through the McDonald Observatory's 82-in. telescope (the world's third-largest), near El Paso, Texas, he decided that the lunar markings were caused by a swarm of satellite planets.

According to Astronomer Kuiper, the moon formed close to the earth some 5 billion years ago in a common atmospheric envelope, much like a double-yolked egg. Both bodies were surrounded by a swarm of small satellites. As the earth solidified and the oceans formed, tidal friction sent the moon moving out into space.

As the moon plowed through the ring of satellites, they smashed into its surface and exploded like H-bombs. They dug craters, sometimes cracked the crust and let lava from the hot interior flow out to form "seas" and plains. Later the moon cooled and wrinkled. The last of the satellites threw up mountainous walls of rubble, scattered giant boulders for miles around, and etched brilliant white craters on the brittle crust.

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