Today's Eclipse. Help me understand what I witnessed.
(media.greatawakening.win)
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You do not see the moon because it is in New Moon phase. The sun is behind it. When you see the moon, either during the day or night, it is because it is reflecting light from the sun, at different angles, which gives us the phases of the moon.
It's tiring how many times we have to explain grade school astronomy concepts to otherwise smart people who decide to overthink this into oblivion.
qUeStIoN eVeRyThInG
qUeStIoN eVeRyThInG
This
Yes, but once the moon gets further away from the sun in the sky, at least part of it should be illuminated and visible!
This is not correct. Most of the moon is dark except for a small sliver... but even then you don't see the moon often at all during the day when it is just in the general vicinity of the sun... because the sky itself is too light to see any other light outside getting in... same reason you don't see stars during the day but they're there just the same.
To add to this... it was pretty cool seeing a few stars during the eclipse.
not stars, planets. Both Venus and Jupiter were visible during the event. Didn't notice any stars, and really was hoping to see a glimpse of the comet.
The moon isn't getting farther away from the sun. The earth is turning away from the lined up sun and moon. That's why there is a path of totality. The sun and moon stay lined up in relation to the earth for much longer than any one place experiences totality.
The moon gets a tiny bit further from the earth every year. In a few hundred years or so, we won't experience total eclipses anymore.
Per NASA this is only 3.78cm per year and has a very slightly elliptical orbit. It can be calculated out exactly when there will be no more total eclipses seen on earth... this is going to be in 563 million years. Its rate of moving away is also slowing down... in like15 billion years it will no longer be moving away. But we will be swallowed up by our sun expanding in about 6-7 billion years... so we're married tot he moon and to total eclipses for quite a while longer than a few hundred years. Fun stuff though. (I did not downvote you)
The amount of illumination will be too low tomovercome the high contrast of a blue sky.
I mean, some of the stars are pretty bright and you can't see them during the day.
No, because its a lot nearer us than the sun is.
The new moon phase last 3 days. It is when the moon moves further along its orbit around the earth that it will start to be visible again.