30 | New Scientist | 10 August 2019
Exhibition
The Moon
National Maritime Museum,
London, to 5 January 2020WHEN Apollo 8 astronaut Bill
Anders returned to Earth after
orbiting the moon in 1968, he
came back with a new perspective.
The newspapers were full of the
eerily beautiful colour photograph
we now know as Earthrise.
Taken by Anders on Christmas
Eve, the image shows a fragile
and lonely Earth rising above the
horizon of the moon’s pocked
surface. Almost as iconic was his
remark at the time: “We came
all this way to explore the moon,
and the most important thing
is that we discovered the Earth.”
Perspective is key to a new
exhibition, The Moon, at London’s
National Maritime Museum
(NMM), the biggest of its kind in
the UK during the anniversary
year of the first moon landing.
As its lead curator Melanie
Vandenbrouck says, the moon
is “a mirror for humanity.
When we look at the moon, we
are really looking at ourselves.”
She is right in a literal sense,
given prevailing theories about
the moon’s origins as a piece of
Earth that broke off in a collision
some 4.5 billion years ago. But
Vandenbrouck means more than
that. The landing anniversary
provides the occasion, but the
remit is wider, offering an
aesthetic, cultural, artistic and
scientific exploration of our
relationship with our neighbour.
Organised in four parts, ranging
from the ancient to the modern
and beyond, it starts aptly with a
delightful image from Romantic
artist and poet William Blake.
In a black and white illustration,
a figure stands on the first rung ofThe call of the moon
From beautiful Japanese prints to Buzz Aldrin’s “Snoopy cap”, the UK’s biggest
lunar exhibition is bound to please, writes Shaoni Bhattacharyaa ladder to the moon, reaching up,
with the words “I want! I want!”
underneath – a yearning that runs
throughout the exhibition.
The first section concentrates
on the historical, emotional,
spiritual and practical ties withthe moon. Researching the
context makes you appreciate the
moon’s universality, says Louise
Devoy, a senior curator at the
Royal Observatory Greenwich,
the NMM’s partner museum.
That ubiquity is clear in many
artefacts, from a Babylonian
cuneiform tablet dated to 172 BC,Views Culture
NASAsensation in 1610 when they were
published with his recording of
surface features: craters, valleys
and hills. This contradicted the
idea that the stars, the moon and
planets were unchanging bodies.
In everyday life, the moon was
at the heart of all sorts of things,
from the annual harvest to
medicine, literature and art. There
is a very effective “moon walk” of
paintings, prints and photographs
from different cultures and times.
Prints from Japan and Korea
of the harvest moon sit alongside
small, beautiful paintings by
J. M. W. Turner and John Constable.
Of course, an exhibition like
this must offer the full space race
and Apollo 11 experience. The
NMM has managed to get hold
of key artefacts. There is a portrait
of Neil Armstrong by Paul Calle,
who had special access to the
astronauts on the morning of
Apollo 11’s launch. It captures
Armstrong’s famous cool.
There is also Buzz Aldrin’s
“Snoopy cap”, or communications
headset; the Apollo 11 flight plan;
and the magazine that held the
film used to take the iconic photo
of Aldrin on the moon with
Armstrong reflected in the visor
of his helmet. Oh, and there are
pieces of moon rock.
Space enthusiasts may well get
goosebumps, but this exhibition
will please others too, with its
thoughtful, multi-faceted
exploration. As Vandenbrouck
says: “The moon is a great unifier.
Whenever you are on Earth, you
will look at the moon – everyone
who has ever been born will live
under the moon.” ❚Shaoni Bhattacharya is a consultant
for New Scientist based in London, UKwhich recorded rituals associated
with lunar eclipses, to moon
masks worn by First Nations
peoples of Canada. It has
permeated our belief systems,
says Devoy, while gods appear and
disappear like the waxing of lunar
phases. The Hindu moon god
Chandra and China’s moon
goddess Chang’e both have space
missions named after them.
With the advent of telescopes,
our relationship with the moon
started to change. The earliest
surviving drawing of the moon
made using a telescope is on
display: Thomas Harriot’s
1609 sketch relied on a telescope
with just 6× magnification.
While Harriot may not be
well known now, Galileo Galilei
is, and his book Sidereus Nuncius
(Starry Messenger) is on show.
His telescope viewings caused aYearning for the moon
culminated in crewed
missions like Apollo 11“ The moon is a great
unifier. Everyone
who has ever been
born will live under
the moon”