moonscape

From moon +‎ -scape.

moonscape (plural moonscapes)

1. A view of an area of the Moon.
2. (by extension) A desolate or devastated landscape.
   • 2007 December 20, Clive Thompson, “Clive Thompson on How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds”, in Wired Magazine‎^[1], number 16.01, archived from the original on 30 June 2013:

     In the Australian outback, industrial activity — notably open-pit coal mining — has turned verdant areas into moonscapes seemingly overnight, and the suicide rate in the region has skyrocketed.

   • 2020 July 15, Marion Gourlay, “Old Oak Common: no ordinary station”, in Rail, page 48:

     Looking across the recently flattened, desolate moonscape of this former 52-acre Great Western depot and industrial area, south of Willesden Junction in west London, it's hard to imagine it will be home to the UK's largest, busiest and best-connected new railway station since Victorian times.

   • 2022 December 7, Carl Zimmer, “Oldest Known DNA Offers Glimpse of a Once-Lush Arctic”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     They made their way to a geological formation called Kap Kobenhavn, a series of bare hills as desolate as a moonscape.

   • 2025 January 19, Eli Saslow, Erin Schaff, “They Built a Home to Fend Off California Wildfires. But Will They Stay?”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     They had never managed to host many events on their property, in part because some of the surrounding area remained a moonscape. The cork oak where Phillip wanted his ashes spread had burned down in the last fire.

• manoscope, monospace