Round the Moon · Chapter
X: The Observers of the Moon explained
The travelers, having realized their trajectory has been fatally altered by a chance asteroid, accept they will not land on the moon.
What happens
The travelers, having realized their trajectory has been fatally altered by a chance asteroid, accept they will not land on the moon. Instead, they dedicate their remaining time to observing the lunar surface from a distance, using telescopes and selenographic maps to study its features, while grappling with their uncertain fate.
Themes in this chapter
Scientific Exploration and Discovery
The travelers use telescopes and selenographic maps to study the moon's surface, contributing to lunar science despite their failed landing.
Human Audacity and Ingenuity
The travelers' determination to observe and document the moon even after their mission's failure highlights their audacity and resourcefulness.
The Sublime and the Unknown
The vast, silent lunar landscape and the travelers' precarious existence in the projectile evoke a sense of the sublime and the unknown.
Characters to notice
- Impey Barbicane
Barbicane identifies the cause of the deviation, leads the observations, and logically explains to Ardan why they cannot reach the moon.
- Michel Ardan
Ardan clings to hope of touching the lunar disc, but is repeatedly dissuaded by Barbicane's reasoning.
- Captain Nicholl
Nicholl is present as one of the three travelers, though not explicitly named in this excerpt; his inclusion is implied by the group.
Key passages
“Barbicane had evidently found the only plausible reason for the deviation. However slight it had been, it had been sufficient to modify the trajectory of the projectile. It was a fatality.”
Barbicane realized that a tiny, chance asteroid had altered their course, dooming the mission.
Explains the cause of the trajectory deviation.
“But a few days were centuries to these intrepid men, and they consecrated every moment to observing the moon they no longer hoped to reach.”
Though they had only days of air left, the travelers devoted every second to studying the moon they could no longer land on.
Highlights their focus on observation despite impending doom.
“The eye, dazzled as if leaning over a furnace of molten silver, turned from it involuntarily.”
The moon's reflected light was so intense it hurt to look at, like staring into a furnace of molten silver.
Describes the overwhelming brightness of the lunar surface.