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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Is it possible to achieve a stable "selenostationary" orbit around the Moon?
Is there a stable geostationary orbit around the Moon?
My feeling is, that the orbit would collide with Earth, because of the Moon's slow rotation.
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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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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 ...
CommunityBot
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Moon path diagram for a location
There are a lot of sun path diagrams online (i.e. https://www.gaisma.com/en/location/seattle-washington.html), but I'm struggle to find a moon path diagram. Is that called something different?
I'm ...
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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 ...
CommunityBot
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Place on Moon that always lit?
Is there a place on Moon (sure it's near north or south pole) that is always lit by sun? It's to install solar panels if I will choose to make rancho there :)
What diameter of Moon Polar circle?
How ...
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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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How do I calculate moon phase orientation at any Coordinates given all the necessary data?
I'm having a problem for a couple of days where I'm trying to accurately calculate the phase angle of the moon at any given Coordinates (lon,lat).If I know my current Coordinates, Moon and sun ...
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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 does moonrise/moonset azimuth vary with time?
In my tenacious attempts to observe moonrise (surprisingly difficult in a poor weather heavily urbanized hilly area with frequent bad smog, with busy work schedule and a bicycle) I was frequently ...
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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 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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Why does the planet Saturn have numerous (62) moons compared to the rest of the planets in the Solar System?
Saturn is a gas giant like Jupiter. It has everything from
tiny moonlets less than 1 kilometer across to the enormous Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury. Saturn has 62 moons with ...
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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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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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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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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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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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Was that actually a shooting star during the supermoon eclipse on September 27th 2015?
During the super-moon total lunar eclipse on September 27th a meteor-like streak passed very close within view of the event. It appeared to happen at the very middle, the maximum eclipse.
[...
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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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Why is the Moon's volume so small compared to the Earth's?
The Moon has 27.3% of the Earth's radius/diameter but only 2% of the Earth's volume. I don't quite get it why the Moon's volume is that small despite having more than a quarter the 2-dimensional size ...
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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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Satellite in orbit in front of and behind the Moon
Would it be possible to put a satellite into the same orbit as the Moon, but far enough ahead or behind the Moon to remain in place?
Has this ever been done in practice?
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Can Earth host another natural satellite than the Moon?
Are there orbits with long-term stability (astronomical time scales) around Earth? Low altitude orbits will decay due to friction with Earth's atmosphere. Inside Earth's Roche limit, a Moon could not ...
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Moons with synchronous rotation in our solar system
Are all moons in our solar system rotating synchronously around their planet? If not, what are the criteria that some do and some don't?
Many thanks for any insights!
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When did astronomy first discover that the stars are bigger than the moon?
We take it for granted these days that the stars are bigger than the planets and the moons. But when you look at the sky, it does not appear this way.
The Moon looks bigger and brighter than the stars....
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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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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 is this moon red?
I wish I could attach a good quality photograph of this red color moon I'm looking at right now.
I searched on internet but there was no lunar eclipse scheduled to occur on 23rd December 2018
in ...
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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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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 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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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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Given this report, you can see why people may think the moon landings were fake? [closed]
I was reading today that, in research published in The Astrophysical Journal, molecular oxygen has been discovered in the Markarian 231 galaxy, 561 million light-years from Earth. A light-year, which ...
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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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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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Why do Earth and moon move apart but binary black holes move closer?
According to the accepted answer on Is the moon moving further away from Earth and closer to the Sun? Why?, the moon is receding from Earth because tidal forces and friction cause energy to be lost.
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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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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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Why does time pass faster in moon than the earth?
One of my friends said that,
time passes faster in moon than the earth
Why does time pass faster on the moon than on the earth?
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How to calculate the altitude of the Moon?
With the known latitude coordinate of the observing position, how to find the altitude of the moon when it is high, i.e when it crosses the local meridian?
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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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