Tycho Crater

“ Schickhard (7) is another similar plain, nearly as large, but not possessing the same dark tint in the interior. The huge mountains around Schickhard make a fine spectacle when the sun is rising upon them shortly before full moon.
[131] Tycho (9) is the most famous of the crater-mountains, though not the largest. It is about fifty-four miles across and three miles deep. In its center is a peak five or six thousand feet high. Tycho is the radial point of the great light-streaks that, as I have already remarked, cause the southern half of the moon to be likened to a peeled orange. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is perhaps the most rugged region on the moon. It includes two objects of supreme interest, Tycho, the ‘Metropolitan Crater,’ and Clavius, the most remarkable of the ring plains. You will no doubt recognize Tycho at a glance. It is near the center of the picture. Like the last photograph this one represents an early morning scene. The western wall of Tycho throws a broad, irregular crescent of shadow into the cavernous interior, but all of the eastern, northern, and southern sides of the wall are illuminated on their inner faces. The central mountain group is emphasized by its black shadow. ”

“ This crater is Menelaus, which we saw in one of the smaller photographs. It is characterized by its exceptional brilliance as well as by the fact that the longest of the bright bands that start from Tycho passes through it, and then continues on across the Mare Serenitatis and the Lacus Somniorum, to the Mare Frigoris. This band, more than 2,000 miles long, has come all the way from Tycho, high in the southern hemisphere, never turning aside to avoid anything in its path. Mountains, craters, and ring plains are equally indifferent to it. ”

“ Those around Copernicus, although less remarkable in regard to their extent than those diverging from Tycho, are nevertheless in many respects well deserving of careful examination: they are so numerous as utterly to defy attempts to count them, while their intricate reticulation renders any endeavour to delineate their arrangement equally hopeless.
The fact that these bright streaks are invariably found diverging from a crater, impressively indicates a close relationship or community of origin between the two phenomena: they are obviously the result of one and the same causative action. ”

“ During the second quarter of the moon, when the sun [Pg 15] is rising slowly upon Tycho, lighting up his peak and showing the crater beautifully divided into a bright cup in the curve to the right, while a dense shadow lies in the left hollow, these streaks are only faint, and among the many craters around (see Fig. 4) you might even have some difficulty at first in finding the well-known giant. But as the sun rises higher and higher they begin to appear, and go on increasing in brightness till they shine with that wonderfully silvery light you see now in the full moon. ”

“ The border is everywhere crowded with depressions, large and small. Three ring-plains, not less than 6 miles in diameter, stand upon the S. wall, the most westerly overlapping its shallower neighbour on the E., which projects beyond the wall on to the floor. The interior has a very rugged and uneven surface, upon the N. side of which are two very distinct craters, and a short crater-row on the W. of them. It is traversed from W. to E. by three bright streaks from Tycho, two on the N. being very prominent under a high light. ”

“ There is every reason to conclude that Tycho is an instance of a vast disruptive action which rent the solid crust of the moon into radiating fissures, which were subsequently occupied by extruded molten matter, whose superior luminosity marks the course of the cracks in all directions from the crater as their common centre of divergence. ”

“ The loftiest portion of what remains of a true border rises at one place to more than 14,000 feet. On the floor, which is traversed by some of the Tycho rays, there is a mountain group associated with a crater, nearly central, and several large rings on the N. side. Though the formation is very difficult to detect under a high sun, Madler's dictum that "the full moon knows no Maginus" is not strictly true.
STREET.—A walled-plain between Tycho and Maginus, about 28 miles in diameter, with a border of moderate height, broken by depressions on the N. There are some small craters and ridges within ”

“ Others, toward the west, covered the "Sea of Clouds" and the "Sea of Humors" with a luminous network. What was the origin of these sparkling rays, which shone on the plains as well as on the reliefs, at whatever height they might be? All started from a common center, the crater of Tycho. They sprang from him. ”

“ Very stealthily he rises to his knees and peers over. As he does so, a chance star-shell bursts squarely over him, and comes sizzling officiously down almost on to his back. His head drops like a stone into the bush, but not before the ghostly magnesium flare has shown him what he came out to see—a deep shell-crater. The crater is full of Germans. They look like grey beetles in a trap, and are busy with pick and shovel, apparently "improving" the crater and connecting it with their own fire-trenches. They have no sentry out. ”

“ The rock strata (sandstone and limestone) of which the walls consist present every appearance of having been violently upturned by a huge body penetrating the earth like a cannon-ball. The general aspect of the crater strikingly resembles the impression made by a steel projectile shot into an armor-plate. Mr Tilghman has estimated that a meteorite about five hundred feet in diameter and moving with a velocity of about five miles per second would have made just such a perforation upon striking rocks of the character of those found at this place. ”

“ But if the engineer and the boy were obliged to give up thoughts of following a circular direction, in return an opportunity was given for ascending the cone.
In fact, before them opened a deep hollow. It was the rugged mouth of the crater, by which the eruptive liquid matter had escaped at the periods when the volcano was still in activity. Hardened lava and crusted scoria formed a sort of natural staircase of large steps, which would greatly facilitate the ascent to the summit of the mountain. ”

“ Eight above our heads, at a great height, opened the crater of a volcano from which escaped, from one quarter of an hour to the other, with a very loud explosion, a lofty jet of flame mingled with pumice stone, cinders, and lava. I could feel the convulsions of nature in the mountain, which breathed like a huge whale, throwing up from time to time fire and air through its enormous vents. ”

“ Two years before the publication of his Dioptrics, viz. in 1609, Kepler had given to the world his great work, entitled “The New Astronomy, or Commentaries on the Motions of Mars.” The discoveries which this volume records form the basis of physical astronomy. The inquiries by which he was led to them began in that memorable year 1601, when he became the colleague or assistant of Tycho. The powers of original genius were then for the first time associated with inventive skill and patient observation; ”

“ As a younger man, Trout would have sneered at the sign about brotherhood—posted on the rim of a bomb crater, as anyone could see. But his head no longer sheltered ideas of how things could be and should be on the planet, as opposed to how they really were. There was only one way for the Earth to be, he thought: the way it was. ”

“ But they dared not invade the palace while the globe shone, for the light-rays would have killed them. Curse these knots! If they accomplish their purpose——"
"What's that?" Elak asked—but he had already guessed the answer.
"To sink Atlantis! This island-continent would have gone down beneath the sea long ago if I hadn't pitted my magic and my science against that of the children of Dagon. They are masters of the earthquake, and Atlantis rests on none too solid a foundation. Their power is sufficient to sink Atlantis for ever beneath the sea. ”

“ After the cold gust of wind there was an absolute stillness of the air. The thunder-charged mass hung unbroken beyond the low, ink-black headland, darkening the twilight. By contrast, the sky at the zenith displayed pellucid clearness, the sheen of a delicate glass bubble which the merest movement of air might shatter. A little to the left, between the black masses of the headland and of the forest, the volcano, a feather of smoke by day and a cigar-glow at night, took its first fiery expanding breath of the evening. ”

“ Captain Mangles came on deck. Along the horizon extended a curtain of mist. A few vague outlines floated in the vapors of the morning. A gentle swell still agitated the sea, and the outer waves were lost in the dense, motionless fog.
He waited. The light gradually brightened, and the horizon glowed with crimson hues. The misty curtain gradually enveloped the vast vault of the firmament. Black rocks emerged from the water. Then, a line was defined along a border of foam, and a luminous point kindled like a lighthouse at the summit of a peak against the still invisible disk of the rising sun. ”

“ The sea is pure and free, the land is firm and stable,—but where they meet, the tide rises and falls, leaving a little belt of sodden mud, of slippery, slimy weeds, where the dead refuse of the sea is cast up to rot in the hot sun. ”

“ When the moon was for a moment veiled behind a heavy cloud, the gloom of the Polar landscape became still more awe-inspiring, and before her mind's eye rose a vision of the caravan of men and women struggling across these vast solitudes in the midst of hurricanes, snow-storms, avalanches, and in the thick darkness of the Arctic night! ”

“ The whole extent of the celestial sphere swarmed with stars and constellations of wonderful purity, enough to drive an astronomer out of his mind! On one side the sun, like the mouth of a lighted oven, a dazzling disc without a halo, standing out on the dark background of the sky! On the other, the moon returning its fire by reflection, and apparently motionless in the midst of the starry world. Then, a large spot seemingly nailed to the firmament, bordered by a silvery cord: it was the earth! ”

“ In their drawing-room home they roll themselves up and sleep as dormice do in cold weather, but with warmth and sunlight they expand their petal-like tentacles, and as flies in summer air, now float on the surface of the water, now gem the fronds of the sea-blooms, hang like blossoms from a spray, or deck the brown rock with life and beauty. ”

“ The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarizing miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance showed concavity after the first showed convexity.
Something very like fright had come over all the explorers before anything more definite than rock and ooze and weed was seen. ”

“ Like the moon, when the stars are bedimm'd with her blaze.
The mavis and lark, when they welcome the dawn,
Make a chorus of joy to resound through the lawn:
But the mavis is tuneless; the lark strives in vain,
When my beautiful charmer renews her sweet strain. ”

“ Know'st thou the land of the mountain and flood,
Where the pine of the forest for ages hath stood,
Where the eagle comes forth on the wings of the storm,
And her young ones are rock'd on the high Cairngor'm?
Know'st thou the land where the cold Celtic wave
Encircles the hills which its blue waters lave;
Where the virgins are pure as the gems of the sea,
And their spirits are light as their actions are free? ”

“ All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee? ”

“ To sunshine we fly from too piercing an air;
But love's ardent fire burns always the same,
No winter can cool it, no summer inflame.
But see the pale moon, all clouded, retires;
The breezes grow cool, not Strephon's desires:
I fly from the dangers of tempest and wind,
Yet nourish the madness that preys on my mind.
Ah, wretch! how can life be worthy thy care? ”

“ Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats. ”

“ Here, now and then, a stray gull from the sea sends a flying throb of white light across the mirror below, or the sweeping wings of a hawk paint their moth-like image on the blue surface, or a little flaw of wind shudders across the water in a black ripple; but except for these casual stirs of Nature, all is still, oppressive, and beautiful, as earth seems to the trance-sleeper on the brink of his grave. ”

“ Like the surface of the sea was the mirror of Tuzun Thune; hard as the sea in the sun's slanting beams, in the darkness of the stars, when no eye can pierce her deeps; vast and mystic as the sea when the sun smites her in such way that the watcher's breath is caught at the glimpse of tremendous abysses. So was the mirror in which Kull gazed. ”