La Lune et son histoire

Popular synthesis on the Moon by the French astronomer and illustrator Lucien Rudaux, published in the year of his death. Three parts follow in turn: the Earth-Moon relationship (distance, phases, eclipses, tides, alleged lunar influences), the lunar world itself (relief, maria, walled plains, the absence of water and atmosphere, habitability, landscapes), and finally the satellites of the other planets, from Mars to Neptune. A full chapter, "Is a journey to the Moon possible?", reviews the means imagined from Lucian of Samosata down to the rocket calculations of Esnault-Pelterie, Goddard and Oberth, closing on a note about nuclear energy. Rudaux also sets out his own hypothesis on the origin of lunar relief, formed by a pasty magma welling up through fissures in the crust.