Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from ...

38 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
and tropical equator. Why are those two locales different, and why
does everything in between change from season to season? That’s a
fair question, too, and the cause is rooted in astronomy.
Moving a bit farther out, we encounter the Moon, our closest
neighbor in the universe. I cannot think of any other object so
loaded down with grossly inaccurate theories. The Moon only
shows one face to us, but it does spin; it goes through phases that
look like minature eclipses, but they are nothing of the sort; it
looks unchanging and unchangeable, but that, too, is an illlusion.
In the past, in the future, and even right now as you read these
words, the Moon is being sculpted by unseen forces, just as it is
profoundly changing the Earth. These same forces are at work
throughout the universe, shaking mighty volcanoes, tearing apart
stars, devouring entire galaxies.
If we can put a man on the Moon, you’d think we could stamp
out most of the bad astronomy floating in the Earth’s immediate
vicinity.