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The Moon then wanes as it passes through the gibbous moon, third-quarter moon, and crescent moon phases, before returning back to new moon. The terms old moon and new moon are not interchangeable. The "old moon" is a waning sliver (which eventually becomes undetectable to the naked eye) until the moment it aligns with the Sun and begins to wax ...
The Moon appears to be more yellowish near the horizon. This is for the same reason the Sun and/or sky appears to be orangey-red at sunrise/sunset. When the Moon appears near the horizon, the light coming from it has to pass through more layers of atmosphere. This scatters the blue away, and leaves yellow, orange, and red. [10]
18.1° E 109 km Sinus Iridum: Bay of Rainbows 44.1° N 31.5° W 236 km Sinus Lunicus: Lunik Bay 31.8° N 1.4° W 126 km Sinus Medii: Bay of the center 2.4° N 1.7° E 335 km Sinus Roris: Bay of Dew 54.0° N 56.6° W 202 km Sinus Successus: Bay of Success 0.9° N 59.0° E 132 km
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite.It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth.
This simple picture is only approximately true: over time, slightly more than half (about 59% in total) of the Moon's surface is seen from Earth due to libration. [1] Lunar libration arises from three changes in perspective due to: the non-circular and inclined orbit, the finite size of the Earth, and the orientation of the Moon in space.
The Moon's elongation is its angular distance east of the Sun at any time. At new moon, it is zero and the Moon is said to be in conjunction. At full moon, the elongation is 180° and it is said to be in opposition. In both cases, the Moon is in syzygy, that is, the Sun, Moon and Earth are nearly aligned.
Contrary to popular belief, the Moon should ideally not be viewed at its full phase. During a full moon, rays of sunlight are hitting the visible portion of the Moon perpendicular to the surface. As a result, there is less surface detail visible during a full moon than during other phases (such as the quarter and crescent phases) when sunlight ...
Since the Moon's axial tilt is only 1.5° with respect to the ecliptic (the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun), this effect is small. Once every 18.6 years, [ 1 ] the lunar north pole describes a small circle around a point in the constellation Draco , while correspondingly, the lunar south pole describes a small circle around a point in ...