Our Moon, with Rebecca Boyle

celebrations of lunar New Year. So without further ado, let's get right to that interview. Hi, Rebecca, welcome to the show.

that connection, you know. I write about astronomy a lot right now, and often the moon is sort of like it gets short shrifts, it's kind of annoying for astronomers, like it's really bright, it's up all the time. If you're trying to study distant galaxies and quasars and things like that, it's actually an obstacle. So I often find myself kind of defending it and like, no, the moon is really special and the moon is cool, you know.

And I think that's sort of how I first approached this, was like I want this to be an appreciation of the moon, and then as I started writing it, it became more like, no, the moon is really actually super important for everything that's ever happened here, and the book turned into more of an argument about that, like the moon is central to our existence and it's not just this beautiful thing that we should care about. It's like it's the reason we're here.

Literally the dust itself is sharp. Dust on Earth is soft, and it's mostly from life. I mean most dust is from like human skin and pet dander and pollen and sort of the discards of living things. And it's always sort of rounded and kind of you know, softened by life and by by Earth itself, by wind and rain and erosion. And there's nothing like that on the Moon. So even the dust is like little knives, And I don't think people think about that, you know, when we

imagine being back up there. It was really annoying for the Apollo astronauts. They would breathe it in and they'd go inside the Lunar lander and take their helmets off, and they would all reported this like stuffy nose congestion. It was like itchy and they would be coughing. You know, was really irritating, and it's because it was really abrasive.

It's really terrible to breathe it in and to have it on you, and it's also really staticky, like it's really difficult to get off because you know, again there's no water, there's no atmosphere, there's no moisture at all to sort of take the edge off, and so it sticks to everything with static electricity and it's really difficult to remove. So the dust is going to be a huge obstacle I think for people going back up there.

But I don't think we think about just like the sharpness of the moon, it's not like Earth.

first literate civilizations on Earth. The first written records come from Sumerian culture, and some of the oldest creation stories are from Sumerian age, and one of them is this, they're the creation tablets, which are these literally like tablets like you imagine, you know, Moses holding these clay tablets that were handed down and it's the same that literally is the same thing. This is how people were keeping written records at the time on clay tablets that would

harden in the sun. And the Sumerian creation tales have these whole long stories of how the Earth and the moon and the oceans came to be and the story is that there were these two kind of god monsters and they were separate deities, but then they got married, you know, they united, and their union gave birth to all the other lesser gods, and then these gods kind of started conspiring, you know, as many mythologies hold these

sorts of stories. People were arguing about, you know, who was in charge, who was more powerful, And these are like spirit deities but also human, you know, human form. There were two main gods, Apsu and Tiamat. And I'm probably butchering the pronunciation. So Tiamat is salty water, which is the oceans, Apsu is fresh water. And after they you know, are united in this sacred marriage, Tiamat gives

birth to all the other gods of creation. And there are a few different translations of this story, and the one that I liked is Stephanie Dolly translation missed from Mesopotamia. And in this version, the younger gods and newer gods are like loud and annoying and braddy and disrespectful and so, and Apsu can't sleep, so he decides to destroy them.

Tiamat is upset about this and wants to protect her young so she alerts the older son Anki, who's the god of wisdom, and Enki kills Apsu, and it's this great battle, and in the battle, you know, the gods are destroyed and torn apart. Tiamat herself doesn't survive, and she's rendered in two and one half of her becomes

the heavens and the other half becomes the Earth. And I just enjoyed reading about this mythology as I was reading about the Sumerians, because I was trying to connect the oldest written languages to our understanding of the moon. But it turned out to be a really useful metaphor for the formation of the moon, because a very similar

thing happens. You know, this sort of other being of their planet arrives in Earth's orbit and destroys Earth, and one half becomes the Earth and one half becomes the Moon. And I felt like it was a helpful way for me to imagine this event, and it just seemed like a useful metaphor for what actually.

yet it's materials. It's like down to the atoms in the rocks of the Moon, it's almost identical to Earth. In some cases it is identical to Earth. So there's all these sort of weird characteristics. And this is a difficult story to disentangle. You know, we think, and we've learned in Apollo that probably would happen was this giant impact.

And this is just called the giant impact theory, so that at some point early in Earth's history, another planet was moving around the same orbit as Earth collided with our early planet and both this impact are Thea, which is the Greek god that's the mother of the moon Seline in Greek mythology, So we name this planet THEA

crashes into Earth. Earth and Thea are totally destroyed, and somehow in the cloud of debris that follows Earth and the Moon both coalesce, and this is one way of describing how they can look so alike but yet be so different and distinct worlds. But the particulars of this are still really hotly debated, actually, and we're not really

sure how this went down. And some of it is because we know that the Moon is there, we know its size, we know its speed relative to Earth, how far it's moving away from us, how quickly it's leaving us, and all its rotation speed, our rotation speed, all these factors have to come into play, like there are some just physical facts that we have to explain, and yet some of the other physical evidence doesn't really seem to match up with our models of how this could be.

So there's a lot of people working on this and trying to figure out exactly how this could have happened. And it's interesting to me for a few reasons. And one is just I mean, like I said, it's the Moon, like we should know.

on Earth. You know, if this is a really unique system, if there's no other place like Earth and our moon in the Solar system, which that's the case, maybe that's the case for other Solar systems, you know, maybe other stars that have rocky planets in the habitable zones, maybe those need a large moon sort of sculpting their existence

for life to be able to take hold. And I think if we can come to understand a little bit more about how our moon got here, that will give us some insight into how unique we are maybe in the whole broader universe.

know exactly when, we don't know exactly where. We have some good ideas we think probably it was in the oceans, either in deep ocean events on these mid ocean ridges where Earth's crust sort of has these rifts in it, or somewhere closer to the surface in tidal pools, and these sort of like cycles of hydration and dehydration where the tide comes in, it moistens the rocks, it flows in more fresh water, and then the tide recedes and the water dries up, and you know, it sort of

becomes thicker and murkier, and some interesting chemical reactions can happen in that sort of cycle of ebb and flow, And you know, I think the Moon is really responsible for both of those effects. If life evolved in tidal pools, if it originated there, then we can thank the moon for that flux of water. If life originated in the deep ocean, the Moon's probably what dragged it up and mixed the entire ocean and stirred it, you know, like

a ladle stirring a pot of soup. Like imagine spinning your spoon around in a big stock pot and all of the onions kind of like flow up to the surface. You know, that's what the moon does through its tide. And so either way, I think the Moon played a huge role in fostering the evolution of life, if it didn't spark it into being in the first place, and maybe that also happened. We never We're never gonna know, but I do think the Moon's role in early evolution has probably been overlooked.

couldn't have been used by the chain of life. And I think, you know, the Moon's tide has a huge influence on the movement of water from the deep ocean up to the surface. And we know that that's true, and we know that was true when it was much closer earlier in Earth history, and it was probably having an even bigger effect on all that material in the water.

solar eclipse possible. How do you think that you cover multiple ancient and traditional interpretations of the moon in your book, how do you think the general flavor of global traditions might have differed if the Sun and the Moon were not roughly the same size in the sky.

Greeks didn't really understand what was happening. They didn't know what the moon was and I think because they're roughly the same size. I mean, they look the same size in the sky. It's sort of an obvious, you know. The idea of opposite yin and yang is one of the Chinese traditions, you know, coming and going, black and white, male and female, all these sort of dualities that people have, death and life and death and resurrection. The moon is

an interesting way to represent those ideas. And the moon and the sun together there's one that lights the day and one that lights the night. I mean, that's in Genesis. It's one of the first lines of the Old Testament that you know, on the seventh day, you know, Earth is created, but he gives us the sun to light the day and the moon to light the night, and

the second light is the moon. So I think it's just a natural way of imagining the cosmos, like, of course there is one in the day, and of course there's one at night. Like why wouldn't that be, you know, And so if the moon was very different, or if it was small, or if it was maybe like the moons of Mars, these like dinky little asteroid crumbs, you know, maybe we wouldn't have had that mythic grasp on opposites the way that we do because of this lunar symbolism.

and you know, they're running out of fuel. He has to land, and he has to make a decision really quickly and set down without dipping over. Not on the rim of a crater, but in a pretty flat area, not on one leg on a boulder, but like in a pretty clear field, so that the whole thing is standing upright. So they can get home, and you know, he pulls it off. And I think, if we didn't have a human pilot, an exceptional human pilot in Neil Armstrong,

we've seen what happens. I mean, japan just landed on the Moon a few weeks ago in January, and it flipped over and it sent telemetry. This lander, slim Is its acronym, is still there and they're hoping that sunlight on the panels will continue to let it wake up. As the Moon or wits the Earth and the Sun and the angle of light changes, it brings more sunlight onto its solar panels. But it landed belly up, essentially.

And you know, this was a very complicated and very detailed so built by the Japanese Space Agency, which just had an incredibly success landing on asteroids, you know and other planets like Jack say's one of the best space agencies in terms of successes, and they still had issues and they crashed a few months prior to that in a different lunar attempt, and so you know, I think there's even just getting there physically. There's no substitute for

a really well trained and equipped pilot. And then you know, when they were on the Moon. The astronauts have spent a lot of time doing geology training in Hawaii and Arizona, just sort of being able to understand how rocks looked different from one another and what that might mean. And Neil Armstrong grabbed the first samples and within a few minutes of touching down and there still some of the best samples we got because he knew what he was

looking for. And successive missions too had really detailed astronaut training. The last Apaullo mission, A Paulo seventeen had a geologist, Jack Schmidt, was a trained field geologist, and he had some specific things he wanted and he knew what to look for him and these are really important samples to this day. So I think, you know, having people up there walking around making judgment calls, snap decisions the way

humans can do. There's even with the most advanced technology we have, robots are no substitute, I think for human brains. And I think there's something more sort of just fundamental about it. I don't think I think that humans being up there and connecting the rest of humanity to the Moon through their presence is just an irreplaceable phenomenon like a robot being up there is not quite as impressive,

and their robots are awesome, you know. We've landed cars on Mars and helicopter on Mars, you know, and these are incredible pieces of technology that are our extensions of our ideas and our ingenuity. But I still think humans being able to walk up there and transcend that boundary is just irreplaceable.

we'll see how quickly it happens. At NASA's goal is to land by no earlier than September of twenty twenty six as of right now, but that could change and probably will change, because they have a lot of reasons to be thlowing things down, because some of the companies building equipment to get there are having issues or taking a long time to finish their tasks. So these things

take time. And I think, you know, no one's really expecting it to happen overnight, but I think by twenty fifty nine, by twenty sixty nine, you know, a century after the first lunar landings, I think it's very likely that we'll have permanent human habitation up there in some sort of modest settlement, you know, with with really austere conditions, and you know, people who are really well trained and well equipped to be able to live there for chunks

of time. I don't think it's going to be, you know, a city. I don't envision it being this permanent, like you know. I one analogy I think of sometimes looking at moon exploration in the future is sort of Western expansion in the US, and I think this is sometimes problematic because some of that language is still very much, you know, wrapped up in colonial mindsets and sort of

trampling over land and people who got here first. And you know, there are no cultures on the Moon, there are no indigenous peoples on the Moon who will be oppressed. But I still think that, you know, the ideas that carried us into western expansion in the United States are very similar to how people feel about settling the Moon, and I hope that we step back a little bit and think about that and consider why we want to

be there and what we want to do. So I don't know if I think it's going to be like, you know, a company town, a railroad town, kind of like depot, but I do think there will be experiments up there happening, you know, repeatedly. I think there's likely to be some kind of observatory on the fire side doing astronomy that isn't you know, difficult or impossible from Earth. I think there will be companies taking people and supplies and scientists up there back and forth for research purposes.

And because that will be happening, I think there will be sort of a secondary economy enabling those things, and providing services, and that's one of the goals that NASA has.

I mean, this is the entire purpose of their Commercial Learnar Payload Services program, which is to encourage startups and small companies and big companies to develop technology that will take people, even and supplies and material to the Moon alongside NASA, where like NASA is now just a ride share partner as opposed to the primary reason that we go. And I think that's probably going to happen. It just might take longer than people think.

form of helium that could be used to power nuclear reactors. Potentially, there's a lot of water, and it's not like lakes you know, or aquifers like we imagine on Earth, but it's probably locked up in hydrated minerals more like you know, the oil sands, or maybe in ices, you know, flat fields of ice at the bottoms of permanently shadowed craters, and that could be used either for just human use

or more likely for rocket fuel. If you can split up the hydrogen and oxygen bonds and water, then you have hydrogen and you have oxygen, and those can be

refined into rocket fuel. And if that would be really nice to have if you're going to go back home to Earth you don't need to bring as much with you, or if you want to go on somewhere else further afield to Mars or asteroids or who knows, it would be nice to have a fuel depot at the Moon where you don't need to take as much fuel off Earth with you as you leave.

It's not binding, it's not through the UN even. It's sort of just all the spacefaring countries coming together to agree to a few certain things. And mostly it's things like interoperability of equipment, so like, if you're going to go up there and put up capsule and have people in there, let's make sure that it can dock with you know, this other guy's Space agency equipment, so you

can help each other out if you need to. There are provisions that protect lunar heritage sites, so like they would ask you to not land like on top of the Apollo eleven landing site, you know, and disturb that. There are things like, you know, let's make sure that if we extract material, that you know, we're not trampling on someone else's ability to extract material. Some of those provisions I think are interesting because they inherently give people

a claim. So there's there's a clause in the Artemis Accords that says you can't disturb anybody else's equipment or site or you know, resource material or prospecting ability. And because there's no atmosphere and there's no water, there's no any there's nothing on the Moon to sort of soften your landing. Every landing and every takeoff will throw up enormous amounts of lunar dust that will sometimes go into orbit and take a long time to settle, and it

will be really abrasive. And so if we all have to agree that we're not going to disturb somebody else's landing site, then a landing site becomes that country's or that companies or that you know, whoever, whatever entity can land up there is sort of staking a claim to that location under the Artemisic Coords. And this is not official. It's not like they've all said like, this is mine,

my flag's there, it's my spot. But if you're all agreeing to not disturb one on another's locations, and that's sort of inherent, you know that these are you're staking a claim in a way. And not every country is this signatory to the artomistic course, not every country is a signatory to the space treating. So there's there's not really an international agreement that everyone has agreed upon that will protect the moon or the people going up there,

or the robots going up there. So it's going to be very interesting to see how this all shakes out.

harvest moon, and probably is the most famous example. But the strawberry moon is in early June, and I love this moon because it sort of brings summer along with it. It's called the strawberry moon because that's the time of year that strawberries are getting ripe and they're able to

be picked, and so this has the seasonal aspect. But it sometimes even looks pink as it's rising, you know, in a full moon on a summer night, through a hazy atmosphere with humidity in the air because it's warm in the Northern Hemisphere, I should say, but you know in the US and Europe and northern northern Hemisphere areas, it's this beginning of summer. It's right before the summer solstice. It's the longest nights of the year, or the longest

days of the year, sorry, the shortest nights. So you have a lot of sun and a lot of you know, warmth in the evenings to sort of extend your day outside. And the moon at this time of year is right kind of in your window it's lower on the horizon. And I don't know if people really notice this, but if you pay attention to the location of the Sun and the moon throughout the year, they do this sort of flip like almost like double Dutch jump ropes kind

of crisscrossing in the sky. So the summer moon is in the same general area of the sky as the winter sun, and so in the winter the moon is high overhead, and in the summer again in the northern hemisphere the moon is. In the winter, the moon is high overhead, and in the summer the moon is sort of low on the southern horizon, so it feels more present. I guess, like you really can't miss it if you're walking around outside. It's so dominant on the landscape. It

looks bigger, it looks more just with you. And the Strawberry Moon is the first really like low hanging bright moon of the summer. So it's just my.

Earth in current use. I mean, most of the Western world and the civil calendar use the Gregorian calendar, which is a version of the calendar that Julius us are introduced forty four BC, and it's the first one in the world that divorced the moon from time. And that's how most people use time anymore. You know, even if you're celebrating in a New Year as part of a tradition in Asia, it's still not the way that you know,

global economics and global trade sort of mark time. It's more of a tradition than it is a literal tool anymore. But I think it's so much more than that. It's so much more powerful over our lives than people might think anymore. We have artificial light at night, we live in a twenty four hour news cycle, we live in a twenty four hour economic cycle, and it's easy to

sort of lose track of the Moon's importance. But I hope people think about it in a new way after reading this book, and that they understand how it's been involved in literally everything that has happened here, in ways that are much deeper and much more profound than I realized before I wrote the book.

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