Do We Really Need the Moon? Page #4

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And all beautifully orchestrated by the tidal power of the Moon.

Once the first creatures had emerged in the oceans 3.8 billion years ago,

evolution was in full flow.

And ever since, the Moon has continued watching over us,...

..casting a protective veil.

When I was a teenager, I wanted a telescope so badly,

mainly to look at the Moon, but I couldn't afford a decent one,

so at the age of 14, I went to an evening class and I learnt to make my own.

Now my telescope worked on a similar principle to this one, using a mirror to reflect the light.

It took months to grind and polish those mirrors, but it was so worth it.

I remember the first night when I pointed the telescope up at the Moon

and I could see the craters in amazing detail.

And the first thing you notice is you're always looking at the same craters.

This is because the Moon spins very slowly, one rotation every 29 days,

and that's exactly the same speed as the Moon orbits the Earth.

So as the Moon travels around us, it's always showing us the same face.

So we never see the far side, or the so-called dark side of the Moon.

If we could, we'd see that it's riddled with craters.

In fact, we now know there are more craters on the far side of the Moon than the nearside

which is bit of a relief

because each of them was formed by an asteroid impact

that could otherwise have crashed into Earth

and stopped life in its tracks.

The Moon, which helped start life, may also have preserved it.

Our guardian angel.

This idea, that the Moon looks after us, is ancient.

and placed them in a great circle.

They didn't have metal tools,

let alone cranes.

It was a remarkable thing to do.

It's been suggested that they were building a sort of observatory

to mark a rare lunar event.

Every 18.5 years, the Moon drops in the sky for a couple of weeks, and barely makes it above the horizon.

It's known as a lunar standstill and it last happened in 2006, and it won't happen again until 2024.

Bizarrely, the people who built Callanish

probably knew about the lunar standstill

and they aligned their stones to witness it.

From this angle you can see the Moon rise above those hills over there and drop between those stones.

It must look spectacular.

To line up the stones accurately,

they could only check their position every 18.5 years,

at the next lunar standstill.

It seems incredibly complex, so why do it?

Across the ancient world, people revered the Moon

and made up stories about the mysterious power of this disc in the night sky.

Some stories have survived the test of time.

Think of the classic werewolf movie.

MAN SHOUTS, CREATURE GROWLS

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