The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical featuresElger, Thomas Gwyn
Science
The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical features
Elger, Thomas Gwyn
Moon
The rays emanating from Tycho surpass in extent and interest any of the
others. Hundreds of distinct light streaks originate round the grey
margin of this magnificent object, some of them extending over a greater
part of the moon's visible superficies, and "radiating," in the words of
Professor Phillips, "like false meridians, or like meridians true to an
earlier pole of rotation." No systematic attempt has yet been made to map
them accurately as a whole on a large scale, for their extreme intricacy
and delicacy would render the task a very difficult one, and, moreover,
would demand a long course of observation with a powerful telescope in an
ideal situation; but Professor W.H. Pickering, observing under these
conditions at Arequipa, has recently devoted considerable attention both
to the Tycho and other rays, with especially suggestive and important
results, which may be briefly summarised as follows:--
(1.) That the Tycho streaks do not radiate from the apparent centre of
this formation, but point towards a multitude of minute craterlets on its
south-eastern or northern rims. Similar craterlets occur on the rims of
other great craters, forming ray-centres.
(2.) Speaking generally, a very minute and brilliant crater is located at
the end of the streak nearest the radiant point, the streak spreading out
and becoming fainter towards the other end. The majority of the streaks
appear to issue from one or more of these minute craters, which rarely
exceed a mile in diameter.
(3.) The streaks which do not issue from minute craters, usually lie upon
or across ridges, or in other similar exposed situations, sometimes
apparently coming through notches in the mountain walls.
(4.) Many of the Copernicus streaks start from craterlets within the rim,
flow up the inside and down the outside of the walls. Kepler includes two
such craterlets, but here the flow seems to have been more uniform over
the edges of the whole crater, and is not distinctly divided up into
separate streams.
(5.) Though there are similar craters within Tycho, the streaks from them
do not extend far beyond the walls. All the conspicuous Tycho streaks
originate outside the rim.
(6.) The streaks of Copernicus, Kepler, and Aristarchus are greyish in
colour, and much less white than those associated with Tycho: some white
lines extending south-east from Aristarchus do not apparently belong to
the system. In the case of craterlets lying between Aristarchus and
Copernicus the streaks point away from the latter.
(7.) There are no very long streaks; they vary from ten to fifty miles in
length, and are rarely more than a quarter of a mile broad at the crater.
From this point they gradually widen out and become fainter. Their width,
however, at the end farthest from the crater, seldom exceeds five miles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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