Questions tagged [the-moon]
Questions regarding Earth's only natural satellite. For questions about the natural satellites of other planets, use the tag [natural-satellite].
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Is it possible to view the sun and moon in the sky at the same time?
I'm writing a story. I want my ending to have the sun and moon visible in the sky at the same time. It is symbolism for the larger story.
Is this possible? I have tried searching and can't find ...
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What is the ring of light around the moon and which star seen near it?
In this amatuer photograph, the following are to be noted:
There is a faint ring of light around the moon. What is the distance we see this at. From the ground it looks like a hundred meters.
There ...
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Celestial "orbits"
I heard that we're losing our moon, its slipping away from us in such tiny imperceptible steps that we don't notice any significant change even over kiloyears.
The same must apply to planets, inching ...
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Confusion about the position of lunar perigee
I'm using python pkg named astronomy-engine.First,I find 2 consecutive perigee times of moon.
...
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sideways crescent moon but also no moon somewhere else?
I live in Sumter, South Carolina and the moon looked like a crescent moon but sideways like a bowl. But when I told my friend to look at the moon they couldn't find it and they live in Buffalo, New ...
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Why did Theia create only one moon if it struck Earth?
If I dropped a heavy ball into some magma it would splash all over the place. So why would Theia create only one large drop of liquid (the moon) and if it impacted the Earths mantle (Bits of Theia ...
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Could a Martian observer witness the Moon's formation with naked eye?
Suppose a human observer was standing on Mars during the early Solar System, looking up into the night sky, in the approximate direction of the young Earth, as the Theia planet hypothesized in the ...
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How can the new moon set before the sun, as will happen in some locales on November 13, 2023?
I have somewhat of an interest in sighting the new moon. I recently heard a lecture by someone who had written a program to provide the conditions for the first new moon sighting for any location for ...
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Moon's libration from Mathematica data
Wolfram Mathematica provides "TransitTime" option (for the Moon in particular).
Knowing this time moment, you can get the position of the moon at upper culmination
(for example, for each day ...
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What causes the variation in the length of the synodic month, BESIDES the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit? And how much do they contribute?
When explaining the reason for the variation in the length of the synodic lunar month, usually the only explanation given is that the Moon's orbit is elliptical, and the portion of its elliptical ...
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How much does the eccentricity of EARTH'S orbit effect the length of the synodical lunar month?
Usually, only the eccentricity of Moon's orbit is used as an explanation for the varying length of the lunar month. But Earth's orbit's eccentricity should also contribute to that. How much does it ...
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Which conditions / situations / place / moment is there a purple moon in the sky in?
According to this A purple moon?
In March 12, 2017 there was a purple moon somewhere , "just risen, color altered red moon". I've seen yellowish, redish moons, but I've never seen a purple ...
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Will Lunar Months be the same length Millions of Years in the Future?
If I remember correctly, the amount of time it takes for the moon to rotate around Earth is getting longer over time. Is this true, and if so or the opposite is true and a lunar month is getting ...
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Get Moon libration data from JPL Horizons
I've been searching Horizons settings to find lunar librations but can't find. How can I get the libration data?
So I have tested this Horizons Web Application and selected Moon as the target. Whether ...
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North Node cross longitude?
It appears that that swetest can tell the exact longitude as long as you give it the date and time
...
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Identify the bright object to the left of the moon
I'm seeing the sky at 23:00 on September 29, 2023, from the east of Algeria's point of view. To the left of the moon, there is something very bright. I need to confirm if it's Jupiter?
(My camera ...
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Determining the position of the North Node using math?
I have to be honest. Been learning python for few months but when I saw this code I was blown away, mainly by its simplicity and secondly by not understanding it .. can someone help me understand ...
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How do people of the opposite side see the Moon and the Sun?
I was looking in the StarTracker android application from Tehran, Iran; and this is the screenshot:
As you can see the Moon covers a small portion of the Sun. The green line above them is the ...
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Sun or moon, finding the date and time of crossing a specific longitude
the Sun is currently in Virgo ♍, 13°7'9" or longitude 56.0762 degrees
how does one calculate when exactly the Sun will reach this position again. Since the moon is doing a spin in 29.x days lets ...
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What secondary and tertiary conclusions can be drawn from the temperature characteristics of lunar soil sent by ISRO Chandrayaan 3?
ISRO Chandrayaan 3 released the following data today about the temperature characteristics of lunar soil.
What secondary and tertiary conclusions can be drawn it?
More specifically, what may be the ...
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What is the duration of a year on the Moon (Tropical/Sidereal period) for orbit about the Sun ? How/why does length of lunar days vary ? Soltices?
The inclination of the lunar equator to the ecliptic is 1.543°.
Synodic period or Length of a day on the moon = 708.7344 hours
Moon Fact Sheet
100 Lunar Days - Parts I and II
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Why doesn't the Moon, like the Sun, turn bright red when it's close to the horizon?
Why does the Moon, being close to the horizon, turn red only slightly, or not at all?
Aren't the causes that lead to the coloring of the Sun (atmospheric refraction) are also true for the Moon?
In ...
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Why isn't a month 28 days?
1 days is a rotation of earth. 1 years is an orbit of the sun. I've always beleived that one month is 1 period of the moon orbiting earth but the inconsistent distribution of days throughout the ...
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How to compute Date and time to next Ascension / Descension of the Moon
Is there an easy way to calculate the next date and time for Ascension / Descension of the Moon?
I work with swift language but a mock code will be ok for me.
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What is the albedo of the far side of the Moon?
As is well known, and as you can see in the image below, the far side of the Moon is brighter than its near side. What is its overall albedo? And what would be the magnitude of a full moon if the (...
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How do we know the Moon was much closer than it is now?
We know that right now, by measurement, the Moon is moving further away from the Earth. So I've heard the conclusion that the Moon was much closer to the earth in the past.
How do we know that part? ...
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How old are the total solar eclipses as we see them today? [closed]
I've seen it referenced often that "total solar eclipses" (of the kind we see today where the corona of the Sun is visible as opposed to all of it being blocked) have become possible only ...
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Position of the Moon viewed from same spot couple of months apart
In the below image, the position of the moon as viewed from the same spot is displayed.
The drawing to the left is from today at local time of 2am.
The drawing to the right is from a couple of months ...
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Moon moving near horizon much faster than at zenith, reason? error?
I read that the apparent motion of the moon is approximately its diameter every hour.
However, we just observed the moon appearing to rise through a stationary cloud in about 10 minutes, it definitely ...
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Why does the moon move within the zodiacal circle if its orbit is at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic?
The moon moves along the zodiac circle along with other planets, this is a known fact. But at the same time, its orbit is inclined to the plane of the ecliptic.
According to the above diagram, the ...
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Will the Earth tidally lock to the Moon (ignoring Sun's expansion)
At some point, won't the tidal forces from the Moon be less than the ones from the Sun? Would that mean that the Moon stops moving away, or would the process still continue. Would the Earth start ...
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What does the rate the Moon moves away from Earth depend on?
Is it based on the distance between the Earth and Moon? Would that make the Moon move away faster or slower as time goes on?
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Would the Earth and Moon still have tides after the Earth tidally locks to the Moon?
Ignore the Sun's expansion.
From my understanding, tidal locking happens from torque as a result of tidal bulges being offset from the line between the two planets. So when the Earth and Moon tidally ...
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How far should we be from Earth to see a half Moon while it is seen as a crescent on the Earth?
When we see a crescent Moon that means it should be seen a half Moon from another position in the sky, because the terminator line (i.e. the line that separates the bright and dark areas of the Moon) ...
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How to calculate Topocentric Crescent Width and Moon Radius/Semi-Diameter?
I have the Topocentric Moon Altitude, T. Moon Azimuth, T. Sun Altitude, T. Sun Azimuth, T. Elongation, T. Phase Angle.
How do I calculate the Topocentric Crescent Width and the Topocentric Moon Radius/...
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Why does earthshine fade out when night comes and reappear on the next evening?
While watching the Moon in the thin-crescent phase (a few days after new Moon), I often noticed that the earthshine becomes noticeable near the end of civil twilight, and very noticeable during ...
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If someone were to create a lunarcentric solar system model, what would have to change about the math and model besides swapping Earth and the Moon?
A story I wanted to think about has a society centred on the Moon in some colony, and for some reason didn´t have telescopes of their own. Why is not important.
The Moon orbits the Sun in almost the ...
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What does the moon's phases look like from the Equator?
I recently found out that the moon's appearance changes based on one's latitude, and while googling for more information I found conflicting images about what the moon's phases look like from the ...
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Is this definition of tidal locking really satisfying?
We always are hearing this: "If a moon has equal rotational and orbital periods it's tidally locked to its host planet and always one side of it will face to the planet."
But what if, for ...
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Moon position differences on JPL Horizons, GMAT, Skyfield (using DE421)
I found a relevant difference in the positions for the Moon when calculating its Geocentric position with GMAT and Skyfield (https://rhodesmill.org/skyfield/), in both cases with JPL DE421. ...
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Moonrise and moonset roughly at the same hour for few days
I generated ephemeris for my town (15.10, 17.03) and what caught my attention is for some days in a row, the difference between moonrise is like 15 minutes (diffence between moonset is ~1h at a time):
...
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How close is a typical New Moon to the Sun in the sky?
In a Solar Eclipse, the Sun, Earth and Moon are exactly colinear (well some area of the Earth where the eclipse is visible), and these are relatively rare.
But in addition, Sun, Earth and Moon are ...
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Why is moonrise/moonset before sunrise/sunset on some days but after on others?
While looking at the daily forcasts for the week on The Weather Channel app on my phone I noticed that today, Thursday the 18th, both moonrise and moonset are roughly half an hour to an hour BEFORE ...
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Can illumination in the sky due to moonlight measured in any way?
Is illumination in the sky due to moonlight measured in any way? I'm trying to understand if I can make a model to understand at what level of illumination a person can clearly identify another person ...
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Can one or more moons orbit around a double planet system?
Given a double planet system where the two bodies are of similar mass;
Can a moon orbit one or both planets in a stable orbit?
How about an artificial satellite?
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Why would there be a correction for the orbit of the moon in the (geocentric) model of Ptolemy?
"In order to correctly predict this position (of the celestial bodies), Ptolemy had to assume that the moon followed a path that sometimes brought it twice closer to the earth than at other times&...
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Moonsighting on 20/04/2023 in Tumair KSA
The moon has reportedly been observed on the evening of 20/04/2023 in Tumair, Saudi Arabia, marking the end of Ramadan. According to some websites such as this one, this cannot happen. I was wondering ...
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How to convert GMST to GMST° (degrees) for calculating RA [duplicate]
For calculating the Right Ascension of the moon I need the GMST (Greenwich Mean Sidereal Time) in Degrees.
I have found the formula
GMST = 100.4606184 + 0.9856473662862 * D + H * 15,
D = number of ...
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Sideways crescent moon in Maryland
I am in Maryland, and the crescent moon has been horizontal (cereal bowl bottom pointed toward the earth) for at least the past month or two. Now it’s kind of diagonal. I’ve read that this is only ...
