Heywood is known for putting in writing some very famous sayings that we still use today, like “the more, the merrier,” “a penny for your thoughts,” and “Rome was not built in a day.” Included among these proverbs is the line, “the moon is made of greene cheese.” This was meant to be a humorous addition to the proverbs, and wasn’t anything that was actually believed. It’s also important to note that in this context, “greene” refers to the cheese’s age and not color.
As with many of Heywood’s proverbs, “the moon is made of greene cheese” would become popular, and eventually make its way into common use.
On April fool’s Day in 2002, NASA released fake images from the Hubble telescope that “proved” the moon was made of green cheese. And in an early version of Google Moon, before high-resolution images of the surface became available, the closest zoom levels depicted a Swiss cheese pattern.
Picture Credit : Google