Dean chats with Chris Cokinos, author of Still as Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon from Antiquity to Tomorrow. Listen in to learn more about what makes the moon so magical. Special thanks to Jack Horkheimer and James Albury from Star Gazers!
Homework assignment:
Try out Dean's 7-Night Stargazing Challenge!
Go outside 7 night in a row and spend some time looking at the sky. Tell us what you learn at lookingup@wvxu.org or post about your stargazing journey on social media using #lookinguppod
Additional resources referenced in this episode:
- NASA Connect - MMOU - Algebra and Telescopes
- Star Hustler
- Star Gazers: Seven Day Challenge- April 3-9, 2017
- "Jack Horkheimer Star Gazer" 5 Minute Aug. 16 - 22, 2010
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Looking Up is transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Dean Regas: For all of the amazing astronomical discoveries this century and incredible technological advances, what does the average person know about the universe? I have a hypothesis, and maybe it's a little negative, but hear me out. I think the average citizen of ancient Greece or Egypt or China or America would know more about what's up in the night sky than the average person today.
So, here's my example. I'll ask a relatively simple question, one that anybody in the ancient world would be able to answer immediately. What will the moon phase be tonight?
From the studios of Cincinnati Public Radio, I'm your host, Dean Regas, and this is Looking Up, the show that takes you deep into the cosmos, or just to the telescope in your backyard to learn more about what makes this amazing universe of ours so great.
My guest today is Chris Cokinos, author of the new book Still as Bright, a backyard journey through the natural and human history of the moon. I bet he knows what the moon phase is tonight.
So, was that a trick question? Did you know the answer? What is the moon phase tonight? I mean, watching the sky is not the nightly pursuit, you know, that it was back in the day. But it seems that it was the form of entertainment around the world back then.
[Archival Audio]: Imagine that you are an ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek or Roman and that you enjoy stargazing
Dean Regas: The nightly motion of the stars Forming constellations in the mind and the changing of the phase of the moon These were like the height of entertainment. The sky was their TV Their internet, their YouTube, they kicked back after a hard day and tuned in to what was going on up there in the big show.
[Archival Audio]: Now, as an ancient human, you would notice that most of the stars remain in fixed positions relative to one another. And that they only change their positions in entire groups, depending on the hour of the night or the season of the year.
Dean Regas: I would argue that the stars were the headliners, you know, over the moon. The moon was just too complicated. The stars were constant companions. You could get to know them as you viewed them from the same place every night.
You know, there's a flickering red star that would shine above the neighbor's house, or a shy blue star twinkling through the leaves of the same tree every night. And the passage of the constellations from season to season was way easier to measure. I mean, that was easy stuff. You could probably figure out the whole sky, you know, full of stars in like three to five years.
Now, the moon, man, that was an advanced lesson in astronomy.
Well, Chris, thanks so much for joining me today.
Chris Cokinos: Well, thank you for having me on the show. It's great to be here.
Dean Regas: In your latest book, you take a new look at an old favorite for stargazers, that is, the moon. So, what is it that drew you to the subject and what discoveries were new to you?
Chris Cokinos: Oh, what drew me to the moon, several things happened.
I was living in Tucson at the time. And was sort of in the midst of some professional and personal discontentment, I suppose you'd say, and I had my telescope. I'd had been a stargazer for many years, and it was gathering dust. I was always just a little bit too worn out to take the telescope out of the city boundaries.
And one night there was the moon, and this was right about when people were starting to talk about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and I began to look at the moon and found this dramatic, wild, sublime landscape that is a real place that any of us can go to. You can borrow a telescope from your public library.
They're all over the United States. And it's been an important journey for me to, to sort of get to know the, the moon as an archive as well for art and science and folklore and religion and telling the stories of, of forgotten astronomers who paid attention to the moon in ways that we haven't in a long time.
Dean Regas: Well, and if we go way back, what were some of the fascinating ways the ancients viewed the moon? And even up until like Renaissance days, you know, Kepler and Galileo, what were some of the ways that they thought about the moon and viewed it?
Chris Cokinos: Well, of course it was worshipped as a deity and is still an important religious presence in many cultures, something that we need to bear in mind as we go back to the moon with the Artemis program.
But in the deep past, it was of course a time piece. The words moon and month are related. It was the way that prehistoric civilizations could track time through the phases of the moon. Um, yeah. And they were doing science, really. They were following the motions and phases of the moon. And those motions and phases led to stories, stories of goddesses and gods and, and powerful sacred presence in the sky and in resurrection.
The moon is born each month. It reaches this full light, this beautiful full moonlight, and then it, then it wanes and it, it goes away. And people did wonder what it was. I mean, apart from thinking of it as a deity, some philosophers thought it was a piece of perfect alabaster-like material that was placed there to remind us of our corrupt imperfections here on earth.
And it wasn't really until Galileo.
[Archival Audio]: 1608 was a happening year. In that year, the Italian scientist Galileo became one of the first humans to view celestial objects with the newly invented telescope.
Chris Cokinos: And he looks at the moon through the telescope and reveals it as a world, that then it becomes a place, then it becomes a landscape, and if it's a landscape, if it's a world, a place like the earth, then the next question is, what could be up there?
Would there be life on the moon? And that was a question that vexed and animated astronomers and philosophers for a long time.
Dean Regas: Well, and I would always play Galileo when I'm looking through a telescope. I always like to look at it as if it's like the first time. And so, when you look at the moon now through your own telescope, how does this experience the journey of like looking. through a telescope. How does that make you feel?
Chris Cokinos: It still makes me feel a part of something much bigger than myself.
I think because of the scientific history of the moon and the historical figures that I write about in the book, I can bring to my looking at the landscape of the moon, those stories. And so, you know, there's a crater in Galileo's book, the starry messenger, there are craters drawn. And I can see those same craters, right?
So, I can play Galileo as you do. And anytime a person looks at the moon through a telescope, you can have that sort of thrill, that fresh sense of discovery. And that can still reveal to me, I've been looking at the moon now for several years, I'm still finding things that I hadn't observed before. And you can sort of reinvent that.
The history of the moon with a little bit of knowledge about those stories from Galileo, all the way up to the Apollo program. And onto the present, I can look at the regions of the South pole through my backyard telescope. And that's where our astronauts and perhaps as well, the Chinese astronauts, the Taikonauts will be landing in a few years.
So, it really is this Sweeping presence. The moon has played an outsized role in the evolution of the planet, the evolution of life, and I think just to look at it, even with a little bit of that sense, casually through a telescope, is really wonderful and sublime and dramatic.
Dean Regas: What do you think our future is with the moon?
We definitely have some increased missions coming up here shortly. What do you feel like we should do with the moon and maybe shouldn't do with the moon?
Chris Cokinos: That's a good question. And it's a big question because the moon is the common inheritance of our species. It doesn't belong to anyone, yet it belongs in a sense, it's possessed by the entirety of human history and the species right now.
And so. I think because of the Artemis program, this return to the moon program is also an international project. We have more than 40 countries that have signed onto the Artemis Accords, which is a document pledging, you know, how are we going to go back and what should we do and what shouldn't we do? And those conversations are ongoing.
There's a question to hear about. The return to the moon being both about science and commercial resources. And the reason we're going back, which I should have mentioned, is that we have found water ice on the moon. So, in those permanently shadowed craters, the coldest places in the solar system at the lunar South pole, there's ice, and that means.
Oxygen. That means drinking water. That means hydrogen rocket fuel. And so quite naturally, that's something that if we want to extend the human presence in space, we want to take advantage of. But I think it's going to be important that we do it in a way that's respectful of the multiple entities that will be physically on the moon and the multiple cultures and voices and perspectives here on earth that will want to see.
That done in a way that, that doesn't destroy huge swaths of, again, this very dramatic lunar landscape
Going back to the moon, I think is important for science and for expanding the human presence in the solar system. But if it's going to be worth it, doing then we need to do it in a way that doesn't replicate the mistakes that we've made here on earth. So, let's talk about the moon as a kind of heartland rather than a frontier.
And I think those subtle shifts in language are going to be really important in changing how we treat the moon or potentially treat the moon as just an object that we want to, you know, exploit to our ends. I hope that we don't go down that path. As we look forward to that, let's tackle some of these ethical issues that are, um, front and center for policymakers right now, because the moon is our common inheritance, and we should all have a voice in its future.
Dean Regas: Well, Chris, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for joining me today and talking about your new book.
Chris Cokinos: Oh, thank you. That's sweet of you guys to ask. I'm really happy to be on the program.
Dean Regas: So, what's the easiest way to become a better stargazer or moon gazer? This is my advice. Take my seven-night stargazer challenge. We call it the stargazer seven-day challenge. Go outside on seven clear nights. Every night you can. And I know it's cloudy a lot but get as many of those seven nights as close together as possible.
And once you get a foothold in the stars, the sky's the limit. Get a comfy chair, set it up in the same location each night, and it doesn't matter if you're in the city or out in the country. The big thing is just to get out there. Don't even bring your phone outside with you. You don't want it. Observe all the stars you can.
Whatever's shining, check it out. Look for the moon. Look for anything suspiciously bright. Forget about what the constellations are supposed to be. Use your imagination to make the patterns you think should be up there. And then the big thing is just repeat. Same time of night, same location, do that seven nights, and something will happen.
The veil of mystery will be lifted. You'll understand a little bit of the universe. And maybe even your place in it.
[Archival Audio]: And whatever you do, remember, keep looking up.
Dean Regas: Looking Up with Dean Regas is a production of Cincinnati Public Radio. I created the podcast along with Kevin Reynolds in 2017. Ella Rowen is our show producer and editor and can tell you the current moon phase anytime. Try it. Marshall Verbsky assists with audio production and editing and says, if you have any problem with any part of this episode, he Apollo-gizes.
Jenell Walton is our Vice President of Content, and Ronny Salerno is our Digital Platforms Manager. Our theme song is Possible Light by Ziv Moran, and our cover art is by Nicole Tiffany. I'm Dean Regas and keep looking up!
