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The Moon in Motion
Happy New Year! And happy supermoon! Tonight, the Moon will appear extra big and bright to welcome us into 2018 – about 6% bigger and 14% brighter than the average full Moon. And how do we know that? Well, each fall, our science visualizer Ernie Wright uses data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to render over a quarter of a million images of the Moon. He combines these images into an interactive visualization, Moon Phase and Libration, which depicts the Moon at every day and hour for the coming year.
Want to see what the Moon will look like on your birthday this year? Just put in the date, and even the hour (in Universal Time) you were born to see your birthday Moon.
Our Moon is quite dynamic. In addition to Moon phases, our Moon appears to get bigger and smaller throughout the year, and it wobbles! Or at least it looks that way to us on Earth. This wobbling is called libration, from the Latin for ‘balance scale’ (libra). Wright relies on LRO maps of the Moon and NASA orbit calculations to create the most accurate depiction of the 6 ways our Moon moves from our perspective.
1. Phases
The Moon phases we see on Earth are caused by the changing positions of the Earth and Moon relative to the Sun. The Sun always illuminates half of the Moon, but we see changing shapes as the Moon revolves around the Earth. Wright uses a software library called SPICE to calculate the position and orientation of the Moon and Earth at every moment of the year. With his visualization, you can input any day and time of the year and see what the Moon will look like!
2. Shape of the Moon
Check out that crater detail! The Moon is not a smooth sphere. It’s covered in mountains and valleys and thanks to LRO, we know the shape of the Moon better than any other celestial body in the universe. To get the most accurate depiction possible of where the sunlight falls on the lunar surface throughout the month, Wright uses the same graphics software used by Hollywood design studios, including Pixar, and a method called ‘raytracing’ to calculate the intricate patterns of light and shadow on the Moon’s surface, and he checks the accuracy of his renders against photographs of the Moon he takes through his own telescope.
3. Apparent Size
The Moon Phase and Libration visualization shows you the apparent size of the Moon. The Moon’s orbit is elliptical, instead of circular - so sometimes it is closer to the Earth and sometimes it is farther. You’ve probably heard the term “supermoon.” This describes a full Moon at or near perigee (the point when the Moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit). A supermoon can appear up to 14% bigger and brighter than a full Moon at apogee (the point when the Moon is farthest from the Earth in its orbit).
Our supermoon tonight is a full Moon very close to perigee, and will appear to be about 14% bigger than the July 27 full Moon, the smallest full Moon of 2018, occurring at apogee. Input those dates into the Moon Phase and Libration visualization to see this difference in apparent size!
4. East-West Libration
Over a month, the Moon appears to nod, twist, and roll. The east-west motion, called ‘libration in longitude’, is another effect of the Moon’s elliptical orbital path. As the Moon travels around the Earth, it goes faster or slower, depending on how close it is to the Earth. When the Moon gets close to the Earth, it speeds up thanks to an additional pull from Earth’s gravity. Then it slows down, when it’s farther from the Earth. While this speed in orbital motion changes, the rotational speed of the Moon stays constant.
This means that when the Moon moves faster around the Earth, the Moon itself doesn’t rotate quite enough to keep the same exact side facing us and we get to see a little more of the eastern side of the Moon. When the Moon moves more slowly around the Earth, its rotation gets a little ahead, and we see a bit more of its western side.
5. North-South Libration
The Moon also appears to nod, as if it were saying “yes,” a motion called ‘libration in latitude’. This is caused by the 5 degree tilt of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth. Sometimes the Moon is above the Earth’s northern hemisphere and sometimes it’s below the Earth’s southern hemisphere, and this lets us occasionally see slightly more of the northern or southern hemispheres of the Moon!
6. Axis Angle
Finally, the Moon appears to tilt back and forth like a metronome. The tilt of the Moon’s orbit contributes to this, but it’s mostly because of the 23.5 degree tilt of our own observing platform, the Earth. Imagine standing sideways on a ramp. Look left, and the ramp slopes up. Look right and the ramp slopes down.
Now look in front of you. The horizon will look higher on the right, lower on the left (try this by tilting your head left). But if you turn around, the horizon appears to tilt the opposite way (tilt your head to the right). The tilted platform of the Earth works the same way as we watch the Moon. Every two weeks we have to look in the opposite direction to see the Moon, and the ground beneath our feet is then tilted the opposite way as well.
So put this all together, and you get this:
Beautiful isn’t it? See if you can notice these phenomena when you observe the Moon. And keep coming back all year to check on the Moon’s changing appearance and help plan your observing sessions.
Follow @NASAMoon on Twitter to keep up with the latest lunar updates.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
Fun night learning my way around the Moon. In 1965, Ranger 9 was intentionally crashed into the crater Alphonsus. Imaged with a Celestron 127slt mak and iPhone 8. #moon #space #nasa #celestron127slt #telescope #backyardastronomy #craters https://www.instagram.com/p/B2KIOK0HWhY/?igshid=jtolznfnslrd
THAT’S MOON (this is a post of sci universe i am not stealing it ;)
This stunningly clear view of the Moon’s craters was captured by an astrophotographer!
At first sight I’d guess this image to be taken by a spacecraft. However, Jordi Delpeix Borrell obtained this incredibly detailed view of our crater-studded Moon with a Celestron 14-inch (35cm) telescope, accompanied by Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro mount, and a ZWO ASI 120mm camera. Hundreds of exposures of the Moon’s southern region, taken at Barcelona, Spain in November 2015, were stacked to achieve this striking clarity.
This is the winning image for Our Moon category of the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016 competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Borrell’s original image title was “From Maurolycus to Moretus”.
image credit: Jordi Delpeix Borrell
Earth crust and impacts
There is evidence that the earth is hosting extraterrestrial rocks but the difference to my hypothesis is that I think that lots of it is much younger than predicted could be even thousands of years and not millions proven by young Iridium traces found in many parts of the earth. Why don’t we find enough craters on earth like on moon although our earth has a stronger pulling power?
it is because the older craters have been covered by younger once.
Here an article by the National Geographic tells a little bit about rocks that visited our planet and made changes in the earth crust;
Holdsworth and his colleagues had an inkling that the rotated layers and other curious features of the rock’s fractures might be the result of a precipitous plunge, but they needed more data to make the case. So Killingback took on the challenge for his master's thesis research.
More about this interesting story:
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/2020/10/in-what-is-today-scotland-before-plants-or-animals-existed-this
Granite and impact craters
Another t evidence for the impact is the Verdefort crater in the Transvall Basin in South Africa, the largest impact crater on Earth almost 300 km in diameter. As shown below
It was originally thought to have been formed by a volcanic eruption, It consists of a granite dome 40 km in diameter in the center of the crater. Then we have different kinds of rocks forming rings round the crater center like an arc of Ventersdorp lavas formed by the lava flowing out of Earth after the impact and then we have the outer rings formed mainly by Ghaap Dolomite rocks a form of carbonate mineral like Limestone a part of the carbonate platform in the Transvaal and Griqualand West Basinswhich which belongs to the original Earth before the impact. We find high content of iridium in the area which is mostly found in meteorites . We find also platinum what I think that it has extraterrestrial origin and wasn’t formed on Earth, the same could be the case with gold and the whole platinum-group metals. Vredefort's different magnetism is just simply because it belongs to a different planet.
Also the Tswaing crater in South Africa seen below is a smaller one (1.15 km diameter and 100 m deep) it has enough granite remains remains to be a prove that this meteorite was composed from granite. It's also an evidence for the existence of stony meteorites impacts and not only iron meteorites.The surrounding area known as the Bushveld complex is one of the important sources of the platinum group metals. . The crate floor is covered with a high concentrated saline lake, what could be an indication that the salt on earth could have an extraterrestrial origin.
Source:
www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/epo_web/impact_cratering/enviropages/Tswaing/Tswainggeologypage.html
To https://www.facebook.com/volcanojessofficial/
Morning moon. #moon #luna #earlymornings #moonset #sun #natural #satelite #lunar #6oclock #celestial #celestialmage #nature #cool #cratersofthemoon #craters #250mm #upright #lunatica #morningsky #instapics #dailypic #randomshot #instamood #darkblue #explorer #sky #explore #india (at Tada)
Even with the slight haze of the evening clouds. This is probably the clearest of my lunar shots thus far. #lunartic #craters #nightsky #celestial #canon #celestron #5SEtelescope https://www.instagram.com/p/BnDjyiTDQp3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1hwgz4r3whhct