Earth-moon relationships : proceedings of the conference held in Padova, Italy, at the Accademia galileiana di scienze lettere ed arti, November 8-10, 2000

Sediments and sedimentary processes on the Moon and Earth are very different. In the absence of water, an atmosphere, the magnetosphere, and much less oxygen in its rocks, the Moon has neither clay minerals nor carbonates, and no Fe3+. Mechanical weathering by impacts is the principal process of sediment generation on the Moon; on Earth, chemical weathering predominates. Whereas processes of sediment transport are principally ballistic on the Moon, movement by air, water and ice prevail on the Earth. The radical differences between Earth and Moon sediments make them useful end-members between which all sediments of all terrestrial planetary bodies are expected to lie. The purpose of this paper is (l) to compare and contrast major characteristics of the origin, transportation, deposition, and preservation of sediments, especially dust, in the Earth and the Moon, and (2) to suggest how sediments of other rocky planetary bodies, especially Mars, may fit in-between the sediments of the Earth and the Moon. Front Matter....Pages i-x Welcome Address....Pages 1-3 Goodly Frame, Spotty Globe: Earth and Moon in Renaissance Literature....Pages 5-23 Sediments of the Moon and Earth as End-Members for Comparative Planetology....Pages 25-43 The Moon in the 14th Century Frescoes in Padova....Pages 45-50 The Importance of the Moon in Teaching Astronomy at the Primary School....Pages 51-60 The Moon and the Origin of Life....Pages 61-66 Sexual Satellites, Moonlight and the Nuptial Dances of Worms: The Influence of the Moon on the Reproduction of Marine Animals....Pages 67-84 Claire De Lune on the Italian Space Science Programme....Pages 85-85 Fantastic New Chondrites, Achondrites, and Lunar Meteorites as the Result of Recent Meteorite Search Expeditions in Hot and Cold Deserts....Pages 87-97 Lunar Influences on Climate....Pages 99-113 Apollo Samples and the Geochemical Determination of Basaltic Achondrite Parent Bodies....Pages 115-125 Water: Communicator in Moon-Earth Relationships....Pages 127-127 “Lunacy” in Mentally Disturbed Children....Pages 129-131 Highlights from ICEUM4, The 4th International Conference on the Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon....Pages 133-142 The D-CIXS X-Ray Spectrometer on ESA’s SMART-1 Mission to the Moon....Pages 143-152 Lunar and Planetary Perspectives on the Geological History of the Earth....Pages 153-177 Moonstruck: How Realistic is the Moon Depicted in Classic Science Fiction Films?....Pages 179-200 The Moon and Extra-Solar Planets....Pages 201-207 Craters on the Moon from Galileo to Wegener: A Short History of the Impact Hypothesis, and Implications for the Study of Terrestrial Impact Craters....Pages 209-224 Reckoning Time, Longitude and the History of the Earth’s Rotation, Using the Moon....Pages 225-236 Ancient Moons....Pages 237-243 The Formation of Chemical Elements and their Abundances in the Solar System....Pages 245-252 A New View of the Moon in Light of Data from Clementine and Prospector Missions....Pages 253-269 The Atmosphere of the Moon....Pages 271-277 The Moon and Life on Earth....Pages 279-290 Marine Animal Behaviour in Relation to Lunar Phase....Pages 291-302 Moon-Struck: Artists Rediscover Nature and Observe....Pages 303-341 Nitrogen on the Moon: What Does it Tell Us?....Pages 343-350 Search for Antimatter in Cosmic Rays Using the Moon....Pages 351-362 Mysteries of the Farside of the Moon: What Galileo Couldn’t See....Pages 363-363 Lunar Maps of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Tobias Mayer’s Map and its 19th-Century Edition....Pages 365-377 SMART-1: The First Time of Europe to the Moon....Pages 379-390 Palaeolithic Timekeepers Looking at the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic; The Lunar Cycle and the Pleiades in the Cave of La-Tête-du-lion (Ardèche, France) — 21,000 BP....Pages 391-404 Lunar Influence on Plants....Pages 405-409 A Perspective on the Earth from the Moon....Pages 411-418 “Earth-Moon Relationships”: Highlights of the Conference and Concluding Remarks....Pages 419-426 The Dispute between Carlini-Plana and Laplace on the Theory of the Moon....Pages 427-441 On the Orbit of the Moon....Pages 443-443 Geochemical Evidence for a Close Genetic Relationship of Earth and Moon....Pages 445-452 Macro and Microcosmus: Moon Influence on the Human Body....Pages 453-461 Lunar Rhythms in Forestry Traditions — Lunar-Correlated Phenomena in Tree Biology and Wood Properties....Pages 463-478 Meteor Showers on the Lunar Atmosphere....Pages 479-486 Lunam 2000 (Lunar Atmosphere Mission)....Pages 487-495 Earthshine at the Rainbow Angle....Pages 497-498 Seneca and the Moon: The Cultural Importance of our Satellite....Pages 499-503 The Moon, the Stars and the Milk....Pages 505-513 Science Fiction in Naples in the Middle of the 19th Century....Pages 515-515 Moonlight Without the Moon....Pages 517-522 The Science Goals of ESA’s SMART-1 Mission to The Moon....Pages 523-531 Lunar Explorers Society: Goals and Activities....Pages 533-538 Lunation and Primate Menses....Pages 539-543 Mapping the Moon with SIR, An Infrared Spectrometer for SMART-1....Pages 545-545 Radioastronomy and Radiointerferometry on the “Hidden” Lunar Surface....Pages 547-555 The Moon in the Classic Maya World....Pages 557-560 The Response of the 11 August 1999 Total Solar Eclipse in the Geomagnetic Field....Pages 561-566 Variations in the Mortality with Respect to Lunar Phases....Pages 567-572 Back Matter....Pages 573-575 The Galilean Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts in Padova (Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti) was founded in 1599 by a group of distinguished scholars and noblemen, with the name of Accademia dei Ricovrati. Among the founders, Galileo Galilei helped to design the first logo. To celebrate its 400th anniversary, the Academy has promoted a series of initiatives focussed on the far-reaching intentions of its founders, namely to achieve a truly interdisciplinary dissemination of knowledge. The Conference on the Earth-Moon relationships was one of these initiatives. It brought together a number of distinguished scientists from different fields - such as Astronomy, Celestial Mechanics, Chemistry, Geology, Medicine, Natural Sciences - but also scholars of Literature and Art, to discuss these relationships, their origins and their influence on human activities and beliefs. The idea of this Conference is deeply rooted in the motivation of the series of events that have characterized the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Galilean Academy of Sciences, Literature and Arts, namely the identification of Interdisciplinarity as the raison d'être of the Academy itself.