History & Culture
Our Debt to the Moon
A new book takes the reader through the connections between the Moon and our planet’s earliest era, modern-day life, and everything in between.
By Elisa Shoenberger
NASA
Earth’s Moon is a special celestial body. It is visible most everywhere on Earth without the aid of a telescope or other special equipment, provided it is not too cloudy. Sometimes we can even see it during the day. The Moon changes shape (to our eyes) from a full circle, to a crescent, to a sliver, to nothing. Humans and animals can navigate with moonlight, and some animals set their mating season to it. But the Moon does so much more.
In her newly published book, science journalist and writer Rebecca Boyle makes the compelling case that the Moon is indispensable to the development of Earth, all life, humanity, and society. It may seem like a tall order but in Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are, Boyle builds a persuasive argument from the creation of Earth to the development of life. (The latter owes its thanks to the magnetic field surrounding Earth that protects fledgling life from the Sun’s radiation, and the tidal waves that helped to mix up nutrients and the other building blocks of life.)
Following the creation of the Earth as we know it. Boyle explores the Moon’s role in different civilization’s conception of time from early civilizations in Europe, to ancient Mesopotamia, to the age of Enlightenment, through the 1969 Moon landing, to today. In addition, she makes the argument that being able to control and quantify time is not only powerful but became a means of establishing authority over others. Boyle ends her book with a focus on the recent efforts of nations and private companies to exploit the Moon’s resources without thinking about the repercussions.
Mercury had the opportunity to talk with Boyle about her book. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Our Moon walks the reader through how our planet's only natural satellite has shaped the planet and what lives upon it.
[Penguin Random House Publishing]
Shoenberger: A lot of people have written about Earth’s Moon, but what made you decide that you needed to write this specific book about our Moon?
Boyle: As a science journalist, I write about the Moon a lot and I read a lot about planetary science and astrophysics. I feel that sometimes the Moon is like a forgotten character in those fields. A lot of times scientists joke that it's just so boring.
I always felt, “No, it's not. It's cool and it's so interesting. We should pay more attention to it.” I started [the book] with that in mind: “This is going to be an appreciation and a discussion of what the Moon has done for us.”
As I did the research, [it became] an argument about how the Moon is super, super important to everything that ever happened on this planet. So the book is more of a retelling of human history. My editor was really the first one who saw this book for what it is: a history of thought, or a retelling of world history, through this lens.
[The Moon] is in every bedtime story and I think that's because it's this companion. It goes away, but it comes back. I think that's really powerful for kids. I never lost that. I think everybody has [a connection to the Moon] and then maybe as we age, we don't maybe feel that strong anymore.
Shoenberger: Was there a specific reporting trip or specific interview that stood out to you, in terms of humanity's relationship with this companion orb in the sky?
Boyle: One of my favorites is the Nebra Sky Disc. It is a fairly famous artifact, especially in Europe, but it’s not as well known in the U.S. [The Disc] dates to the Bronze Age in Europe, which was thought to be this backwater era, [meaning] there was never any concept that there was a really flourishing culture at that time in Midland Europe. But then the Nebra Sky Disc shows that there was some advanced culture. [The creators of the Disc] were really connected to the sky. The interpretation of the Disc is that it’s a calendar device.
And the story behind [its discovery] is so crazy. You could not make this up. The [museum director] set up a sting with the Swiss police to recover this thing from an antiquities dealer who approached him. The police knocked down this entire cabal of antiquities thieves. It's kind of like a movie.
Shoenberger: Wow, that is remarkable. Speaking of other timekeeping objects, one of the elements that really struck me was your argument that controlling time is power. Could you talk about that connection?
Boyle: It was such a powerful connection; it started to feel obvious to me that this relationship with the Moon is really what gave us this understanding of time, and that enabled us to figure out how to create modern culture. I think the Moon has never gotten a lot of credit for that.
It allowed [people] to develop a calendaring system and a timekeeping system. The complexity of that is really what gives people power over one another. Once you understand that you need this timekeeping device to figure out the year. Whoever has the artifacts, like the Nebra Sky Disc, they figured this is how they can control their fellow citizens.
Rebecca Boyle is a science journalist.
[Randall Kahn]
Shoenberger: The chapter about encroachment on the Moon was really disturbing. Why do you think it has not gotten the attention it should?
Boyle: I think most people don't really know how much is already happening up there and how much of this has already [been] kind of baked in.
I want this book to give people a new appreciation for what the Moon has done for us in fundamental ways, but also make people think about what we owe the Moon. Are we really just going to go and take some resources, or stomp around up there and just be able to say, “We did it”? I think we need to have some more thoughtful conversations about what we want to do, and why.
Shoenberger: Thank you for talking about your new book.✰
(Published January 31, 2024)
ELISA SHOENBERGER is a freelance journalist and writer who has written for the WIRED, Huffington Post, Atlas Obscura, Slate, and over 90 other publications. She writes regularly for Book Riot, Murder & Mayhem, Library Journal, and Cheese Professor.
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