astronomy

Maurice Darney

Maurice Darney is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Maurice Darney rather than just read about it. In short: Maurice Henri Laurent Darney (; dar-NAY; January 20, 1882 – August 14, 1958) was a French astronomer and selenographer. He published maps of lunar surface features, including mountains and lava plains, while working at the Paris Observatory.

Key takeaways

Maurice Darney belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Maurice Darney to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Maurice Darney from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Maurice Henri Laurent Darney (; dar-NAY; January 20, 1882 – August 14, 1958) was a French astronomer and selenographer. He published maps of lunar surface features, including mountains and lava plains, while working at the Paris Observatory. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named Darney crater after him in 1935.

Biography Darney was born in the 20th arrondissement of Paris in France in 1882. In his early career, he used hot air balloons to make astronomical observations with fewer atmospheric distortions. He documented his first balloon flight in 1902 in the Paris journal L'Aéronautique and published a paper on the use of balloons for lunar astronomy there in 1908.He worked at the Paris Observatory and the Meudon Observatory, studying the topography of surface features on the Moon. In 1922, he published a map of the Montes Caucasus mountain range in the journal L'Astronomie. He also studied the Sea of Rains, a vast lunar plain, publishing in the Belgian Astronomical Society's Ciel et Terre journal in 1934. Darney collaborated with astronomers including Gabriel Delmotte, Félix Chemla Lamèch, and Arthur Pierot. He and Delmotte independently discovered the network of linear troughs radial to the Imbrium basin, a phenomenon later known as the "Imbrium sculpture", though their finding went largely unnoticed at the time. Darney published the astronomical work Seleno, and a copy is kept by the Société astronomique de France, for which he served as a librarian. He also studied the topography of lunar impact craters and investigated solar phenomena including sunspots. He received multiple awards from the Société astronomique de France, including the Prix Maurice Ballot in 1922, a commemorative medal in 1924, and the Prix des Dames from the Société astronomique de France in 1928. In 1935, the IAU named a lunar crater between the Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum after Darney. He died in Montreuil-aux-Lions, Hauts-de-France region, in 1958, aged 76.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maurice Darney

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maurice Darney claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Maurice Darney before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Maurice Darney ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Maurice Darney

In research: Maurice Darney appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Maurice Darney in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Maurice Darney is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1882 births, 1958 deaths, 20th-century French astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maurice Darney outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Maurice Darney in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maurice Darney means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Maurice Darney out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maurice Darney in simple terms?

Why does Maurice Darney matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Maurice Darney?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Maurice Darney.