A Double Lunar Analemma over Turkey
10.10.2022

An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. But the trick to imaging an analemma of the Moon is to wait bit longer.

Quarter Moons
21.10.2023

Half way between New Moon and Full Moon is the Moon's first quarter phase. That's a quarter of the way around its moonthly orbit. At the first quarter phase, half the Moon's visible side is illuminated by sunlight.

Full Moon, Full Mars
15.12.2022

On December 8 a full Moon and a full Mars were close, both bright and opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. In fact Mars was occulted, passing behind the Moon when viewed from some locations across Europe and North America.

Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
14.12.2022

Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, the history of constant micrometeorite bombardment has blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith.

Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
17.04.2004

Why is the Moon dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, the long history of micrometeorite bombardment has blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith. This lunar regolith could be a scientific and industrial bonanza.

Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
10.11.2001

Why is the Moon dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, the long history of micrometeorite bombardment has blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith. This lunar regolith could be a scientific and industrial bonanza.

Mars Simulated View
16.07.2003

When earthdweller Patrick Vantuyne wondered what his home planet's single large moon would look like if viewed from Mars on July 17, he availed himself of the JPL Solar System Simulator. Of course...

Lunation Matrix
1.10.2022

Observe the Moon every night and you'll see its visible sunlit portion gradually change. In phases progressing from New Moon to Full Moon to New Moon again, a lunar cycle or lunation is completed in about 29.5 days.

APOD: 2024 May 30 Б A Lunar Corona over Paris
30.05.2024

Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently.

Constellation Construction
20.07.2006

This lovely twilight scene, recorded last April, finds a young crescent Moon low in the west at sunset. Above it, stars shine in the darkening sky but they too are soon to drop below the western horizon.