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Credit & Copyright: Mohamad Soltanolkotabi
Explanation:
Can you find the Moon?
This usually simple task can be quite difficult.
Even though the Moon is above your horizon half of the time, its
phase can be
anything from crescent to full.
The featured image was taken in late May from
Sant Martö d'Empöries,
Spain, over the
Mediterranean Sea in the early morning.
One reason
you can't find
this moon is because it is very near to its
new phase,
when very little of the half illuminated by
the Sun is visible to the Earth.
Another reason is because this moon is
near the horizon
and so seen through a long path of
Earth's atmosphere -- a path which
dims the already faint crescent.
Any crescent moon is
only visible near the direction the Sun,
and so only locatable near sunrise of sunset.
The Moon
runs through all of its
phases in a month
(moon-th),
and this month the thinnest
sliver of a crescent -- a new moon --
will occur in three days.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Moon
Publications with words: Moon
See also: