Why is the Moon so low tonight

Why can I see only one side of the moon?

Have you noticed already? The moon always looks the same. Sure, you can only see part of it because of the phases of the moon, but the dark spots are always in the same spot, for example.

Everyone knows this aspect of Moon.

At first, it looks completely normal. Unless you consider the Moon to revolve around the Earth in a month, during this time you have to look at it from all directions. The moon always looks the same – why?

You can also ask another question. The Moon is a celestial body like the Earth, and it is known that the Moon rotates around its axis. This is one reason why the Moon must be visible from all directions.

Both views are correct. The Moon revolves around the Earth and in the process. Features: The speed of both movements is exactly the same.

The Moon orbits the Earth once a month, during which the Moon rotates on its axis only once. In other words, it happens that the same side always points to the Earth, as if the Moon were attached. Scientists talk about “forced rotation”.

This is not a coincidence and is not always the case. When the Moon was reformed, it rotated very rapidly. However, the Earth’s gravitational pull slowed the Moon until its motion was adjusted to speed.

Conversely, lunar attraction slows the Earth’s rotation and slightly lengthens the day.

However, the Earth is much heavier than the Moon, so this “brake” doesn’t work as powerfully. It takes about 200 million years for the Earth to spin slowly and move for 25 hours a day. Unfortunately, it is not possible to pre-calculate whether there are still people and how they spend this extra time.

“Why can I only see one side of the Moon?”

Inverted world – Earth and Moon rise above the horizon. American astronaut William Anders took this famous photo on Christmas Eve in 1968.

Along with Frank Borman and James Lovell, he orbited the Moon several times on the Apollo 8 mission. When his space capsule was released from behind the Moon in one of these orbits, he saw the Earth appear behind the Moon’s horizon.

They were very impressed by the sight and took many photographs, but Anders joked that this was not specified in the mission plan.

The actual “earth rise”, that is, the way the moon rises while standing on the earth, cannot be experienced on the moon’s surface.

Because the Moon always faces the same side of the Earth. If you stay on this side, you can always see the Earth – and always in the same spot in the sky. And the earth can never be seen from behind the moon.

Second face

The Moon emerges from a new dimension. On October 7, 1959, the Russian spacecraft “Luna 3” took its first photograph behind the Moon.

But the world had to wait 11 days for this historical picture. There were enough radio links to send the image when the probe flew back toward Earth.

At first glance, the photos don’t look great. The low resolution and the Sun illuminating the Moon’s surface almost vertically render shadows invisible to mountains and craters.

But I was surprised. This means that there are far fewer dark spots on the back than on the front of the Moon. Astronomers are still confused because of this!

Until this picture was taken, humanity did not know what it would look like there. Because Earth can see only one side of the Moon.

You can only see the part of the Moon that is affected by sunlight.

The Moon (like the Earth) does not shine on its own. We see the Moon only because it is illuminated by the Sun. More precisely, we can only see the area of the half-moon in front of the Sun. The other half is not illuminated and remains dark.

Half of this change can be seen in a month