Associate Professor Fu Hsueh-hai of the Department of Earth Sciences at National Taiwan Normal University believes that the stories of Wu Gang hacking at the osmanthus tree and the white hare mixing elixir are not pure invention, but were based on the shape of the dark patches visible on the moon.
師大地球科學系副教授傅學海就指出，吳剛伐桂、玉兔搗藥之說，當非憑空杜撰，而是依據月亮裡的陰影得來。