A Quote by Gregory Benford

Our moon was born too small to harbor life. It came from the collision of a Mars-sized world into the primordial Earth. From that colossal crunch spun a disk of rocks that condensed into a satellite.

Gregory Benford

Quote Topics

Born Came Collision Colossal Condensed Crunch Disk Earth Harbor Life Mars Moon Our Primordial Rocks Satellite Small Spun Too World

Quote Author

Gregory Benford
American - Physicist
Born: January 30, 1941

The Moon is a ball of left-over debris from a cosmic collision that took place more than four billion years ago. A Mars-sized asteroid - one of the countless planetesimals that were frantically churning our solar system into existence - hit the infant Earth, bequeathing it a very large natural satellite.

Seth Shostak

In the 1990s I began to study the prospects that life could spread from Mars to Earth or maybe Earth to Mars and that maybe life began on Mars and came to Earth, and that idea seemed to have a lot of traction and is now accepted as very plausible.

Paul Davies

The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me -- a small disk, 240,000 miles away. . . . Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence, don't show from that distance.

Frank Borman

Mars is a long ways away. The moon is only 240,000 miles, but Mars is in the millions. It's too risky without spending more time going to the moon.

Jim Lovell

Moon and Sea You are the moon, dear love, and I the sea: The tide of hope swells high within my breast, And hides the rough dark rocks of life's unrest When your fond eyes smile near in perigee. But when that loving face is turned from me, Low falls the tide, and the grim rocks appear, And earth's dim coast-line seems a thing to fear. You are the moon, dear one, and I the sea.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.

Wally Schirra

You can't 'control' a Mars mission from Earth. The Mars mission is going to have to be controlled by the people on Mars... There is just too much involved that is out of sight of Earth.

Robert Zubrin

The distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.

Jules Verne

Most Jupiter-sized planets orbit the mother star in a highly elliptical orbit. This means they will often cross the orbit of any Earth-like planet and fling it into outer space, making life impossible. But our Jupiter travels in a near-perfect circular orbit, preventing a collision with any Earth-like planet, making life possible.

Michio Kaku

Returning to the Moon with NASA astronauts is not the best usage of our resources. Because OUR resources should be directed to outward, beyond-the-moon, to establishing habitation and laboratories on the surface of Mars that can be built, assembled, from the close-by moons of Mars.

Buzz Aldrin

I repeat that the distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over, one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.

Jules Verne

People say, oh we just need charismatic leaders to continue on to Mars. Now we've gone to the moon, of course Mars is next. No. Mars was never, of course, next. It is next if you think we went to the moon because we're explorers, but if you know we went to the moon because we were at war then we're never going to Mars. There's no military reason to do it, to justify the expenditure.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Satellite in my eyes Like a diamond in the sky How I wonder Satellite strung from the moon And the world your balloon Peeping Tom for the mother station

Dave Matthews

If Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seeded by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

We have to work extra hard, because we in America are very ethnocentric--we think our culture is superior. Why's that? It's because we've got moon rocks, and nobody else has moon rocks.