Timeline for Earliest story to mention the different surface gravity on the Moon
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
3 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 3, 2019 at 18:54 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | @M.A.Golding He got it "wrong" in the same way that Red Planet got the atmospheric composition of Mars wrong (he assumed all you needed was extra pressure to be able to breathe the air), and Between Planets expected to find oceans and jungles beneath the clouds of Venus. He used the best science of the day, or of a decade or two prior -- but that science was wrong. | |
| Aug 3, 2019 at 16:45 | comment | added | M. A. Golding | Heinlein and other writers who described the surface gravity of Pluto didn't get it wrong. They merely described what they thought was reasonably plausible surface gravity according to the science of the day. For decades Pluto was assumed to be the Planet X Lowell had calculated, and so assumed to have the mass Lowell calculated. So if Pluto looked so small it had to be dense and have a high surface gravity. Pluto gradually seemed less likely to be that massive and in 1977 when Charon was discovered Pluto's size, mass, and surface gravity were first measured. | |
| Aug 2, 2019 at 19:08 | history | answered | Zeiss Ikon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |