Ann Louise  Gustafson, age ,10 Peoria, IL, for her question

Are there mountains and trees on the moon?

Let’s imagine ourselves to be on that first rocket which will one day land on the moon. If we expect green trees and running water, we shall be disappointed. The rocket sets down in a dry, cindery plain. We cannot step outside without our oxygen masks, for there is no air to breathe.

Our first surprise is the moon's light gravity. We feel light, able to leap way up and hold great weights with ease. The moon, being so much smaller than the earth, has only one fifth of earth's gravitational pull to hug us to its surface. In fact, the moon has not enough pulling power to hold itself a blanket of air. The atmosphere of the moon has long since drifted away into space.

With no air to carry sound, there is no noise on the moon. All about us is a deadly silence. And, since weather depends upon an atmosphere, there is no weather on the moon. No clouds float above it and no water falls to form into running streams and rivers.

The pilot has landed us on the twilight zone of the moon s surface    the slender line between daylight and dark. Night will soon fall and the comfortable temperature will go way below the freezing point. This bitter cold night will last for two whole weeks. We shall see the glowing earth pass through its phases of news, quarter, half, three quarters and full as it spins on its axis. The two week night will be followed by a scorching hot two week day.

Maybe we shall be able to do some exploring. Watch out where those bounding leaps take us over the ground. The rocks are sharp and fagged, for there has been no weather, no wind and running water to smooth their edges. Over there is a curved sharp ridge    the rim of a great circle, maybe a mile across. Inside is an ancient orator caused, some people think, by a fallen meteorites. Some other such craters are 100 miles across and have jagged circular walls up to two miles

We must certainly take time to visit the mountains of the moon. Yea, they are there in plenty. We shall find range after range of mountains far higher in proportion to the small moon than ors the lofty mountains upon earth. Some of them are two miles high, some three miles, and some even five miles. Snow? No, none of them will be crowned with snow and ice, for the moon has no air, no weather and neither snow nor rain.

What we should find on the far side of the moon, we do not know. All our knowledge of the moon has been gathered from photographs and views from our telescopes. And the moon always keeps the same side of its face towards us. Mast likely we shall find that the far side of the moon is just about like the side we study from the.earth. In any case, that part of it will have to wait to be discovered then we finally get there.