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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Look up current positions and velocities of solar system objects
I am working on an orbital dynamics code and, for fun, I would like to model the Sun-Earth-Moon system with my code. I can look up the masses of each object just fine, as well as average distances ...
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where is the boundary between dark night and grey night
Is there a clear cut between them?
How long and how bright will the moon be for a dark night?
I googled but could not find a definition for them. People just talk about them empirically?
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What implications does younger volcanism have on the Moon's thermal evolution?
In the paper Evidence for basaltic volcanism on the Moon within the past 100 million years (Braden et al. 2014), suggest that features such as Ina (image below) represent a far more recent age of ...
user2449
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Visibility of earth from moon during day-time of moon
Inspired by this question. I am curious whether earth, besides being nearly fixed on one place on the moon's sky, is it visible during the day-time on moon too?
My understanding is that earth should ...
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How bright is the full Earth during the lunar midnight?
At lunar midnight (i.e. the new moon as seen from Earth), the Earth is in its full phase with its entire disk in sunlight, and it is the brightest object in the lunar sky. How bright is it, and how ...
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Why can I see the whole moon during various non-full-moon phases?
Here's an image that describes the phenomenon I'm asking about. The very thin sliver to the left is of course the surface of the moon as lighted by the sun. But the rest of the moon is also faintly ...
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Can you see man-made lights on the dark side of the Earth from the surface of the moon with the naked eye?
This question is prompted from a comment on this answer:
Could a person on the surface of the moon see man-made lights on the dark side of the Earth with the naked eye? If not, how much magnification ...
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How does the Earth move in the sky as seen from the Moon?
I just want to be sure I am visualizing this correctly, because it seems odd. The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth but there are wobbles to its motion due to libration. So from a point on the ...
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Why does the face of the moon 'sync' with the earth? [duplicate]
We never see the dark side of the moon. It rotates so that the same side always faces us.
I heard two (dinner party) theories on this:
1. The moon was made by smashing out a chunk of the earth, and ...
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What range of exit pupils work for observing the full moon?
I'm observing the full moon, from a major city, with heavy light pollution and dust.
The objective size is fixed, for this comparison, something between 4 and 6 inches. The question is about the ...
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moonless night and lunar phase
How to define moonless night? There is no moon at all during some night?
How to calculate and know whether the moon would appear during one night?
If the lunar phase is full moon, is it possible ...
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Will Earth lose the Moon before the Sun goes into supernova?
I've read that the Moon is moving away from the Earth by 1-3cm per year.
Is this enough to make the Earth lose the Moon before the Sun goes supernova?
I'm asking because I would like to do the ...
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How many meteors hit the moon every day or in how many days does a new meteor hit the moon?
What is the frequency of meteor strikes on the moon per day?
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Evidence behind Giant Impact hypthesis
The giant impact hypothesis is a theory to explain how the moon was formed. What evidence is there that supports the theory and led us to find the current theory?
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What is the angular diameter of Earth as seen from the Moon?
...today I must have left my brain home. I know it's a simple calculation but I keep failing simplest calculations today.
What is the angular diameter of Earth as seen from the surface of the Moon?
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Mapping selenographic coordinates onto a sphere [closed]
I have created a 3D rendering of the moon, which is represented as a sphere with a radius of N pixels.
I also have selenographic coordinates. For example, the coordinates of the Apollo 11 landing ...
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Is it possible to see a moonrise or moonset twice in a day?
I've been wondering this for quite some time. Due to the variations in tilt from the earth we know that moonrise/moonset times vary. Is it possible that in any location on the earth one might see ...
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Observed sun/moon rise/set times to nearest second?
Where can I find a list of observed (not computed) sun/moon rise/set
times to the nearest second, along with the location (latitude,
longitude, altitude [or enough information to find these three
...
user21
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During an eclipse, does the size of the moon and sun match perfectly?
During a lunar or solar eclipse, from our perspective when we look towards the moon and the sun is behind the moon, does it fit exactly?
Has anyone calculated the sizes of each in a relative ...
public static
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Is a spotting scope or binoculars a better choice for astronomy?
I'm interested in observing the moon and planets, and maybe some nebulae and star clusters.
I have a pair of binoculars:
Nikon OceanPro 7x50 binoculars (around \$300)
Celestron 20x80 binoculars (...
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Why does the Moon sometimes look Yellow?
My friend and I both noticed that the Moon looked yellow Yesterday, but it wasn't like that the same time the day before, as far as I remember.
Does the Moon sometimes look Yellow? If it does, why ...
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What can a lunar-based telescope do?
What can a lunar-based telescope do? If the band is ultraviolet and it can do high time sampling exposure, maybe it can be used to get distance for a star with stable pulses. However, the star should ...
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Why does the Moon never set in Svalbard, Norway?
I heard in a documentary that, in Svalbard (Spitsberg), Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, the Moon never sets. Why? A drawing would certainly help.
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Why is sodium such a common ion for in ion tails?
I was doing research about ion tails of planetary bodies and noticed that ion tails composed of sodium were common. For example, Mercury and the Moon both have ion tails made of sodium. Why is sodium, ...
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Can the martian dichotomy (SIH) and the moon's formation (GIH) be related?
If we assume that the Single Impact Hypothesis regarding the martian dichotomy (wikipedia) and the Giant Impact Hypothesis regarding the Moon's formation (wikipedia) are true, then is it possible that ...
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Multiple apparent lunar eclipses last night
I saw something very strange last night that I'm hoping someone can help me explain.
I was sitting on my roof with a night-cap at about 3am last night. The moon, about the last quarter, was low in the ...
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The face of the moon at moonset
It appears that the face of the moon "rotates" clockwise from the time the moon rises to the time it sets. Tycho's crater seems more to the left and the "Rabbits head" looks like it's facing down more....
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Is it possible for a person to not see the new moon at different places on earth?
It is known that theoretically we see the same moon phase everywhere on the earth, but practically I see that people are unable to observe the 0.8% waxing crescent at different places on earth. This ...
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Date and time system on moons
Supposedly, if humans were to establish a colony on one of the moons of a planet (such as gas giants in our own solar system), how could we possibly design date and time system? On Earth, we define ...
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Visibility of Apollo 11 module
I wasn't around when man landed on the moon in 1969. When I see the moon, I always wonder, were people able to see the rocket?
Yesterday, I looked at the moon in daylight and wondered again.
My ...
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Are these facts about moon true?
I don't have much knowledge of Astronomy but today I was googling randomly and found an article, according to which:
The moon is of the wrong size for its current orbit.
The moon rings like a ...
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Would an ultra bright moon indicate that the world is ending?
There is a sci-fi television episode that shows a man looking out the window into the night sky. There up in the sky is the moon, and it's extraordinarily bright.
The man spends the rest of the night ...
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The RA and Dec of lunar poles
The moon faces the earth with one fixed side. However there is a small vibration.
So I am not sure the south and north poles of the moon is fixed. Even if they are fixed points on the moon, the pole ...
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Is there any point on earth where the moon stays below the horizon for an extended period of time?
When I was teaching a class why the earth has seasons today, I mentioned how the poles of the earth experience months of daylight and darkness. Then one of my students asked whether the moon ...
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Percent-illumination of crescent moon and its naked-eye visibility?
What level of percent-illumination of moon (waxing crescent), given by Stellarium, is enough to make it visible with naked eye, in clear sky?
thanks
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In 2016, the summer solstice will coincide with a full moon. How often does this happen?
I found that the solstices work on a 400 year cycle based on this. I can't find anything similar for the lunar cycle. Is there a formula I can use to calculate the date of the full moon?
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Connection between Earth, Moon, Theia, and asteroid belt?
Are there other fragments aside from the Moon that resulted from the collision of Earth and "Theia" (as it's called in recent main-stream press stories)? And if not, why not? And what ...
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Orbital Elements Transformations
I'm a third year undergrad, and for the project I'm doing this summer, I need to figure out the Earth's position and velocity from the moon's point of view. From the reading I've done, it seems like ...
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Any new info about solar flares hitting the Moon added by the LADEE mission?
This article from 2011 mentions simulations about the sputtering effect caused by a solar flare hitting the Moon:
"We found that when this massive cloud of plasma strikes the moon, it
acts like a ...
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Why did the moon abruptly change positions in the sky?
Three or four weeks ago I was outside showing my neighbors how cool the moon was through a 'backyard' telescope in broad daylight (~8PM PDT). It was 3/4 of the way across the sky (setting behind the ...
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Is the Moon only 60x60 pixels?
In doing research on vision, I have learned that "20/20" vision corresponds to a visual acuity of being able to resolve details 1 arcminute in size, that most people have around 20/15 vision,...
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Red cresent moon
Yesterday night i witnessed something very strange when i looked outside the window. I saw the moon (crescent) but it was dull red and right on the horizon ,which is strange considering that it is ...
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Can impact craters on the moon act like giant radio telescopes?
Could large craters on the moon be used as reflective lenses for radio signals?
Acting like a large radio telescope reflecting radio waves to a satellite positioned over the crater.
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If the moon still had a magnetic field how long would have been possible to keep an atmosphere?
Let's assume the Moon had a considerable magnetic field to prevent the atmosphere dispersion caused by solar wind. Given the low gravity of the Moon, how many years would pass before all the gases (of ...
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Could there be life beneath the surface of Mars or moons?
I realize radiation and extreme temperatures would probably destroy life on the surface of most planets and moons, but could life exist beneath the surface (e.g. like earth worms on earth)?
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Is it a coincidence that both the Sun and the Moon look of same size from the Earth?
The Sun is huge, when compared to the Moon. Despite the huge difference in their size and distance from Earth, is it purely coincidental that they both look almost the same from Earth?
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What will a lunar eclipse look like from moon?
What will a lunar eclipse look like from moon? Will earth become a completely dark circle?
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Red Moon a Characteristic of all Total Lunar Eclipses?
I understand that the redness of the moon during the total lunar eclipse last night/this morning (April 14-15 2014) is a reflection of the red light caused in earth's atmosphere due to Rayleigh ...
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What would happen if Jupiter and Earth were at the same distance as the Moon is from Earth?
If Spock came with a super machine capable of moving planets, and placed Earth so close to Jupiter as the Earth's moon, the gravity of Jupiter would make us fall into it?
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What is the connection between moons, rings, and gaps?
I was watching this video and they said that the rock probably has a moon. Is the reason they assume it has a moon is because there is a gap between the rings created by the moon's orbit around the ...
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