Editing Earthlight (section)

==Notes==

''Earthlight'' was first published in 1955, in the US by [[Ballantine Books]] and in the UK by Frederick Muller Ltd, and was last printed as a paperback in New York by Del Rey in 1998, {{ISBN|0-345-43070-0}}.<ref>[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2027 Bibliography: Earthlight]</ref> It was later republished in an omnibus edition including ''[[Islands in the Sky]]'', ''Earthlight'' and ''[[The Sands of Mars]]'' and called "[[The Space Trilogy (Arthur C. Clarke series)|The Space Trilogy]]".

The space battle in ''Earthlight'' is the only time Clarke wrote such a scene, and it was intended as a specific homage to the attack on the Mardonalian fortress in chapter seven of [[E. E. Smith]]'s ''[[Skylark Three]]''. The scene where the crew of the ''Acheron'' have to cross to the ''Pegasus'' without space suits was inspired by [[Stanley G. Weinbaum]]'s "[[The Red Peri]]".<ref>[[Arthur C. Clarke]], ''Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography'' (New York: [[Bantam Books]], 1990), 104, 123.</ref>

The crew of [[Apollo 15]] named several craters near their landing site at [[Hadley–Apennine]] for science fiction novels and one was named ''[[Earthlight (crater)|Earthlight]]'', for Clarke's book.<ref>[https://the-moon.us/wiki/Earthlight Earthlight crater]. [https://the-moon.us/wiki/IAU_Transactions_XVIB IAU Transactions Vol XVIB]. "Earthlight: A crater named after an Arthur C. Clarke novel by the same name. The crater was described in detail during the second EVA."</ref>  Clarke was delighted to receive a three-dimensional map of the landing site signed and sent by the Apollo 15 crew, two decades after the novel was written.<ref>Foreword to ''The Space Trilogy'' (including ''[[The Sands of Mars]]'', ''Earthlight'', and ''[[Islands in the Sky]]'') by Arthur C. Clarke, 2001.</ref>

The story describes regions of heavy metal resources concentrated in certain areas beneath some of the [[Lunar maria]]. This anticipates the later discovery of mass concentrations or [[Mass concentration (astronomy)|Mascons]], by surveys of the Moon carried out prior to the Apollo landings by the [[Lunar Orbiter]] missions, although mascons on the moon probably don't represent bodies of ore.