The International Observe the Moon Night
It’s Halloween weekend, 2017, and it wasn’t easy to finding a parking spot near Alumni Hall. I notice the 106 bus roll by, packed with students heading downtown. It’s a night of shenanigans and horseplay. I have instead, turned down the dollar beers and half-price poutines. So, what brings me to Western University on a Saturday evening?
On this day, every year, all across the globe, people bring out their camping chairs and warm blankets to gather around telescopes. It’s the International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN), a worldwide event hosted in local spaces — such as football fields, church parking lots, or even your neighbor Jim’s backyard — to appreciate the cultural and personal ties we have with our moon. A nerdy flash mob for astronomy enthusiasts.
Here, in London for the 8th consecutive year, the InOMN is hosted by the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (CPSX), in partnership with the Department of Physics & Astronomy, Western Engineering’s Rocketry, the Canadian Lunar Research Network, the Planetary Society-London Chapter and the London Chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC). Londoners couldn’t have asked for a better venue than the Cronyn Observatory at Western University, home to a 10-inch refractor telescope.
I spot an eclectic crowd by the observatory. Parents, children and entire families. Some have arrived in strollers, a few on walkers. They’re all here to learn about the moon. I hear the excitement of what sounds like children stomping a water bottle. This is my first time at an InOMN event and this place seems to be full of surprises.
At the door, I’m greeted by Viraja Khatu, a PhD student in the Physics and Astronomy department. She hands me a raffle ticket. I notice the talks are already in progress. Dr. Phil Stooke from the Physics and Astronomy department is playing a game of ‘can you spot the difference?’ with the audience. By inspecting before and after pictures of the moon’s surface, he finds a satellite’s crash site. “The splatter of debris around the crater tells this satellite came in at an angle” he explains. A boy raises his hand, “Were these satellites crashed on purpose?” Yes, these satellites were at the end of their lives when they were redeployed as artificial meteors. These lunar kamikazes were aimed at sites where scientists suspect the presence of water. The moon dust ejected from within the crust will then be analyzed for traces of water. As an experienced cartographer of heavenly bodies, Dr. Stooke’s research is valuable.
His talk is followed by Patrick Hill, a PhD student in Geology and Planetary science. His claim to fame is that he has touched moon rocks. (it is whispered within his department that he has tasted them as well). Obviously, he is the go-to if you want to know the make-up of the moon, and in his talk he presents the violent origin of the moon. “Four and a half billion years ago, the nascent earth was blind-sided by a wandering Mars-sized planet. The cosmic accident spewed huge rock fragments into space, with the remnants reassembling into the earth and moon,” he explains. To uncover such stories, lunar detectives like Patrick need astronauts and rovers to descend on the moon. “It’s upon you guys to bring back some moon rocks for me!” Patrick addresses the children.
Evening turns into night, Zack Morse takes the stage. His Halloween-themed talk “Mysteries from the left side of the moon” looks at the Oriental Basin, a hitherto uncharted crater as large as Texas. The dormant nature and it’s unusual origins makes the moon a historical tome of our solar system. Zach’s research could reveal the moon’s makeup and the solar system’s early history.
With the end of the talks, Dr. Parshati Patel thanks the speakers. She has been involved with the InOMN since 2013 during her doctoral studies, and today she is the Public Outreach Program Coordinator for the CPSX. She presents a hat to pick the winners of the raffle draw. The prizes are 3 posters, 3 books and 3 stickers. Dr. Stooke reaches into the hat and picks a winner for one of the books. “She has just started reading!” a mother delights as her daughter walks up to claim her prize. The room is buzzing. “Please be me!” a girl prays. One by one the prizes disperse into the densely packed room.
None for me.
In my disappointment, the table of freebies jumps out at me. They are meant for children, but I go for the cartoony posters anyway; the erupting volcano is my favorite. Noting the schedule of events, I ask Viraja about the “Edible Rock Analysis” and she cocks her thumb at the floor, “It’s happening right now in the lower level,” she says.
To my pleasant surprise, the rock samples are chocolate bars. Mars bars, Bounty Bars and Snicker Bars laid on paper plates. Velvety from the heat, they are easy targets for baby teeth. But, 8 year old Ruth seems more fascinated by what Jennifer Newman is demonstrating. Jennifer — a graduate student in the Geology department — slices the Bounty bar and points to the coconut core, “just like a chocolate bar, rocks have different layers and each layer has a different texture. When we study rocks in the lab, we slice a thin section of the rock and look at it under a magnifying glass.” Ruth doesn’t even ask if she can have the chocolate.
In the adjacent room, everyone, is making rockets. Straining over paper with scissors in hand, they cut a layout for the nose-cone, the body and the wings, and tape them together with great patience. “Thank you. I’m not allowed to use scissors” Gavin says when Keenan Rowcliffe — an Engineering student at Western — helps him craft a rocket. Keenan is a member of the Western Engineering Rocketry team which constructed a 3D printed rocket. When launched, their rocket will fly to an altitude of 10,000 feet. Gavin’s paper rocket wouldn’t climb so high but he and Keenan are excited to launch it in the parking lot. Gavin stomps a water bottle and through a network of plastic pipes, blasts air into the rocket. Our heads swivel as the rocket shoots into the air. Up in the sky, the moon is in its first quarter. For a brief moment it hides behind a passing jet’s vapor trail, and steps out into the black sky. The sky is clear. Its a good time to head upstairs to the telescope.
Cronyn’s 10-inch refractor telescope was built by Perkin-Elmer Corporation which also built the Hubble Space Telescope’s optics. The second largest refractor telescope in Canada; it has been a London monument since its inauguration on 25 October 1940. Every Saturday in the summer, and once a month in the winter, the observatory opens its doors to anyone keen on learning the skies. A tradition as old as the observatory itself.
When I head upstairs there’s already a lineup for the telescope. Outside on the balcony, the RASC set up a few portable telescopes. Families gather around them to have a closer look at the craters. Some of these families have been regulars for years at the observatory’s public nights and special events. These events are more than science outreach programs. At these gatherings strangers become friends. It’s a church, a temple, and a mosque for space enthusiasts.
Ancient civilizations and tribes have deeply wondered about the moon. Centuries ago, on a night such as this, our ancestors sat around a bonfire to pass on stories to their children. In these stories, the moon was a demon chasing the sun, or a woman who rose to immortality, or a cheese ball flung into the sky by a disgruntled homemaker. Today with the advent of science and outreach programs our stories are no longer limited by our imagination. The stories tell of the violent past and the impressive landscape of our nearest neighbor in the heaven.
When manned missions became a reality, our moon was no longer a distant character in our stories. However, the last time we took a walk on the moon was over 40 years ago — a dearth of funding is to blame. The long-term benefits of a manned mission to the moon have been hard to justify against the huge expense, but mobile phones cameras, artificial limbs, medical infra-red thermometers, and countless everyday technologies are by-products of space research. Further, with the pressing issues of population boom, the moon has been envisioned to be an extended home. Scientists are confident of a day when astronauts will descend on the moon to extract resources and even install a space station so future missions can make pit stops before venturing further out into the solar system. To turn that vision into reality, we have to begin by advocating manned mission and we have to do that now. Unlike the 20th century’s Space Race, the urgency to accomplish this is not a matter of nations one-upping each other, but for our future generation’s sustenance. In ways we couldn’t imagine, the moon has brought families closer, turned strangers into better neighbors, and one day will unite nations.
This article was written by Navaneeth Mohan, an graduate student in Applied Mathematics at Western University. This essay is the product of a science-writing internship in David Smith’s Lab at Western.
