Gruithuisen's City on the Moon
In 1824 a respected German astronomer announced he had found a city on the Moon.
What was reported
Franz von Gruithuisen, a Munich doctor and astronomer, spent years studying the Moon through his telescope and was convinced it was inhabited. In 1824 he described a pattern of straight ridges north of the crater Schröter, arranged, he said, like the walls and streets of a city, which he called the Wallwerk.
He also believed he could see roads, forests and signs of the Moon's inhabitants, whom he called Selenites, and wrote about them in papers that made him famous.
Explanations offered
Better telescopes showed the 'city' to be a natural arrangement of low ridges, which looked regular only through his small instrument. Gruithuisen was a serious observer in other ways: he was among the first to suggest that the Moon's craters were made by impacts, an idea later shown to be right.
- When
- 1824
- Where
- North of Schröter crater, the Moon
- Witnesses
- Astronomer Franz von Gruithuisen
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.