Moons Over Mojave

[porch at night; faint electronic hum]

Thought I’d try something different tonight. A guided tour, according to my understandings, of a few of my favorite moons.

I gave this talk to third graders once and it was successful, so now they’ve asked me back for the second graders. Which seems like the wrong direction, but I’m brushing up.

That sound is space.

Synthetic, of course. Space itself is quiet. This is based on measurements converted into sound by people who understand measurements.

[hum changes pitch]

What do you think?

No. Too haunted.

[hum lowers]

There.

I always begin with: It’s a sordid affair, these moons.

And the children look at me like…what?

Then I explain the whole prurient business. Bodies capturing bodies. Collisions. Attraction. Everybody tugging on everybody else. The teachers enjoy that part less than the children.

Another dispatch from Scott Evers. Read for you by Geezer III.

As it happen...

The Moon is in eclipse tonight. Earth’s shadow is already well across her face. I had a nice telescope once, but I gave it to Smith.

Grandson.

He can still bend down to an eyepiece without making a noise.

We won’t need it. Let’s go.

[soft electronic sweep]

There are moons that steady a planet. Moons that slow its turning. Little shepherd moons keeping rings in order. Broken moons that may become rings themselves.

Close your eyes and have a look.

Mars has two battered little fellows, Phobos and Deimos. Phobos is slowly falling toward Mars.

Don’t dwell on it.

Here’s Jupiter.

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and the only one with its own magnetic field. Very accomplished. Probably exhausting to have as a brother.

Io lives closer in.

Jupiter’s gravity squeezes and stretches it until the inside turns hot. Hundreds of volcanoes. Lava thrown miles above the surface. The ground keeps remaking itself, so there’s hardly time for a respectable crater.

If these moons were people, Io would set something on fire just to feel something.

Europa appears composed. Smooth ice. A few reddish scars.

Underneath is a saltwater ocean, probably holding more water than all the oceans on Earth. It may contain life. Europa is the child who keeps a perfectly clean room because nobody must suspect the whale underneath it.

Let’s move before Jupiter notices us.

[swift electronic flutter]

No. That sounds like a car wash. Or a sound effect. [laughs]Take it out.

[flutter stops]

That's better.

Saturn has more moons than anybody can discuss responsibly. Some tend the rings. Mimas has one enormous crater and looks like the Death Star, which means second graders already know more about it than I do.

There's planet Mercury. And it's Titan.

Titan is larger than Mercury and wrapped in a thick atmosphere. It has clouds, rain, rivers, dunes, lakes. Almost Earth—except the lakes are methane and ethane and the temperature is about two hundred ninety below.

Titan built the right house out of the wrong materials.

Should we jog on over to Saturn. There's Enceladus.

Lovely.

Enceladus is only about three hundred miles across. Bright little thing. At its south pole, cracks in the ice spray water vapor and grains of ice hundreds of miles into space.

There’s an ocean beneath it. Enceladus saves us the trouble of drilling by throwing the evidence directly at us.

Farther out, Uranus keeps moons named for Shakespeare. Triton travels backward around Neptune. Pluto and Charon circle a point between them like dancers who can’t agree who is leading.

All right. Home.

Zoom out and you'll see the wonder of our solar system as we head back.

Breathtaking.

[porch returns beneath the hum]

Yes.

The eclipse has moved a little farther across Luna. She’s gone copper around the edges.

Io burns. Europa conceals. Titan has weather. Enceladus confesses.

And Luna—

Well.

That darkness moving across her is ours.

Beautiful.

I should tell the second graders that. They might understand it.

[hum continues]

Turn that off.

[hum stops; open desert, then a distant coyote]

There.

That’s the sound of space.

...

...

Go outside.

Look up.

We're surrounded by miracles.