An illustration from an 1887 issue of Life magazine.

An illustration from an 1895 issue of Life magazine.

An illustration from an 1876 issue of Peterson's magazine.  The caption reads: "Oh! Pitiless! Pitiless Moon!"

An illustration of a battily smiling moon from a 1901 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from an 1864 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Soft shineth the moon."

An illustration from a 1912 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "I'm going to the moon, because that's where you and me came from."

An illustration from a 1921 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Above you the speech of unseen voyagers going north."

Staring into the depths: an illustration from an 1893 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "Behold, where we shall be tomorrow!"

The babe in the moon: an illustration from a 1913 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

An illustration from an 1896 issue of English Illustrated magazine.  The caption reads: "I stumbled to my knees; but something held me—something which bound me like a web in a thousand strong silky meshes."

 

New Scientist reports that


We are in a position to know the vital statistics of the rabbit on the moon:

Weight: 3 lb (1.4 kg)
Length: 16 in. (41 cm)
Fur Color: Grayish brown on top and white underneath.
Habitat: Both sun and shade.

I dreamed of a planet with two moons.  The lower moon slowly waned away.  Then I dreamed I had corrective surgery to remove my comma half.  I was a period!  I indicated the full pause with which the utterance of a sentence closes.  Mine was a pregnant silence.

I woke up feeling uneasy, however, sensing that the period is mightier than the semicolon.

When I fell back asleep, I had a nightmare.  I was being chased by a character called "the Flotz," who gobbles up punctuation.  In fact, it was eerily like in the poem "The Flotz" by Jack Prelutsky: "I chomp on commas half the day, / quotation marks are rarer prey, / a semicolon's quite a treat, / while polka dots are joys to eat."