BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Our Moon: A Human History

Rebecca Boyle Sceptre Books £22 • HB

Why are we so fascinated with the Moon? It is a cold wasteland, devoid of life, but since our ancient ancestors walked the Earth, the Moon has been a source of wonder and curiosity, evoking spiritual feelings within us and featuring heavily in art, literature and song. Formed 4.5 billion years ago, our lifeless Moon has played an important part in evolution on Earth: it stabilised our orbit and influences our climate, natural world and tides.

Our Moon: A Human History, written by award-winning science writer and journalist Rebecca Boyle, is an insightful and captivatin­g read about the historical, cultural and natural influences the Moon has had, and continues to have, upon humans and our planet. From the opening pages of the introducti­on, the reader is drawn into the story by a factual account of war and the importance of the Moon’s tidal influence.

Boyle takes us back billions of years to explain the birth of the Moon, before going on to explore the effects that our closest companion has on our natural world, with some enjoyable and interestin­g details about ‘calendar keeping’ organisms. She introduces us to the ancient astronomer­s and pioneers of the scientific revolution who changed our understand­ing of the Solar System, and the astronauts who bravely stepped on the Moon’s surface, topics that Boyle presents easily and concisely.

Throughout the book, she writes about the lunar journeys she has personally made and the people she has met while undertakin­g her study of the Moon, from archaeoast­ronomers to scientists at NASA. The record of the author’s own journey is an entertaini­ng addition to the book. There are no illustrati­ons, which is a shame for newcomers to the subject who may have benefitted from diagrams and images to aid their understand­ing. That aside, Our Moon is a splendid, thought-provoking tale of the ‘eighth continent’, the author inviting us to consider the Moon in the past and present, and to ponder what the future may hold. One thing is clear: even in this modern age of discovery and understand­ing, our fascinatio­n with the Moon, and the prospects it may hold, certainly hasn’t waned. ★★★★★

Katrin Raynor is an astronomy writer and a fellow of the Royal Astronomic­al Society