Speculations of the Changes, Likely to be Discovered in the Earth and Moon, by Their Respective Inhabitants (ca. 1666)

Jul 30, 2015



In a letter published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the French astronomer Adrien Auzout describes how the Earth might seem to those living in the moon, observing how our landscape not only changes and varies because of the seasons but also because of the alterations to the landscape made by man. Auzout in turn has observed changes on the surface of the moon, writing:
This it is [...] which all Curious men, that have good Telescopes, ought well to attend; and I doubt not; but, if we had a very particular Map of the Moon, as I had designed to make one with a Topography, as it were, of all the considerable places therein, that We or our Posterity would find some changes in Her. And if the Mapps of the Moon of Hevelius, Divini, and Riccioli, are exact, I can say, that I have seen there some places considerable enough, where they put parts that are clear whereas I there see dark ones.