... After going through several logical arguments for the Earth's sphericity (which have not held up over time), Aristotle wrote: . ... Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only that the earth is circular, but that it is a circle of no great size. ... There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead, and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or southward. ... Back to the main file (8) The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus . ...

Educator's Guide to Eclipses . ... In a solar eclipse you observe the Sun (using only safe methods, of course). ... In a lunar eclipse you observe the Moon. ... Because of the geometry described below, you can only view a solar eclipse when the Sun is up, and the Moon is nowhere to be seen. ... Eclipses occur when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up. ... In a solar eclipse the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun. ... In a lunar eclipse the Moon moves into Earth's shadow. ...

Hipparchus (and possibly Aristarchus before him) also derived the Moon's distance from the duration of a lunar eclipse . Because the Earth casts a much larger shadow than the Moon, such an eclipse usually darkens the entire Moon, for several hours. ... If the Sun is assumed to be very distant, and if the Moon crosses the middle of the shadow (if not, corrections must be made), the width of the shadow is expected to be about 2r , twice the Earth's radius r . ... Last updated 4 February 1999 Moon. ...

Cosmic Research, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2004, pp. 435­488. Translated from Kosmicheskie Issledovaniya, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2004, pp. 453­508. Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by Veselovsky, Panasyuk, Avdyushin, Bazilevskaya, Belov, Bogachev, Bogod, Bogomolov, Bothmer, Boyarchuk, Vashenyuk, Vlasov, Gnezdilov, Gorgutsa, Grechnev, Denisov, Dmitriev, Dryer, Yermolaev, Eroshenko, Zherebtsov, Zhitnik, Zhukov, Zastenker, Zelenyi, Zeldovich, Ivanov-Kholodnyi, Ignat'ev, Ishkov, Kolomiytsev, Krasheninnikov, Kudela,