The Moon, as seen from Earth, is the brightest, most easily identifiable object in the night sky. Just by observing it and its appearance in detail over time, we can learn a tremendous amount of science.
Chances are that when you imagine the night sky, one of the first things that come to mind is the Moon “glowing” in the darkness. The Moon has always held a special place in our imaginations and in daily life.
Arctic versus Antarctic perspectives are completely flipped, with latitudinal variations indicating Earth’s shape. Additionally, the Earth’s shadow during lunar eclipses reveals our planet’s spherical nature. The Moon is a dusty ball of rock, measuring 3,476km in diameter – that’s roughly a quarter of the size of Earth.
Its surface is home to mountains, huge craters and flat planes called ‘seas’ made of hardened lava. Although the Moon shines bright in the night sky, it doesn’t produce its own light. We see the Moon because it reflects light from the Sun. As the Moon travels, it rotates on its own axis, just like our planet. It takes roughly the same amount of time for the Moon to make a full rotation as it does for it to complete its orbit. This means we only ever see around 60% of the Moon’s surface from Earth! The part that faces Earth is known as the ‘near side’ and the other, the ‘far side’.
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