If I observed the moon every night it was visible would I eventually get to observe the entire moon, or would I be limited to a certain section that always faces us?
2007-03-01 14:53:00 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
That's what I was afraid of.
2007-03-01 15:53:21 · update #1
Not necessarily. When the moon orbits around the earth, the moon turns on it's own axis. However, because the moon is smaller, it turns faster, so it looks like the moon doesn't move. It does, though.
Yes, you would be resticted to the side that faces us every night, unfortunately.
2007-03-01 15:10:04 · answer #1 · answered by Lizzie 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes. To us, here on Earth, we only see the one side whether it is dark, light, full, half, quarter, etc. You really have to look through a telescope...you don't really even need a very strong one since you are looking at the Moon. Just find the Moon when it is very close to New phase so you see as little of the lit up part of the Moon as possible. The more light on the Moon, the harder it is to do what I am suggesting which is to try to view the hidden or "unseen" part of the moon. I am sure I am pointing out the really obvious but when you can only see part of the Moon, if you look really hard (just with the naked eye) you can see the rest of the moon as a slightly smaller black circle. It is slightly smaller because the light from the sun is making it look bigger by the time the reflected light gets to us 1 second later. Anyway, try to view the Moon, even a good pair of binoculars may work, with almost no light coming from it and you will see that it has the same "man's face" markings that you see when it is full or nearly full. There is a very small variance that does happen throughout the Month and Year (Lunar Month being 28 days) and Year is approximate in this case, I just mean over several Months. So you may, with a telescope, see maybe 55% of the total Moon's surface. You WOULD be able to see other parts of the Moon from other parts of the world. It just spins in relation to Earth so perfectly that the same part of the world sees the same part of the Moon. Weird, Huh?
2007-03-01 15:15:44 · answer #2 · answered by MICHAEL C 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
We take place to be living at a element in historic past while this is real that the orbit cycle heavily fits the rotation velocity (this is not any longer precise), yet Earth's historic past stretches some distance previous the term while this occurs to be real, and Earth would be around plenty longer than the element at which this phenomenon will end. with the objective to respond to your question, sure this occurs to be a accident. although, if this wasn't a accident, and the moon did take place to defy physics and trip around the Earth at precisely the suited velocity in the time of the entirety of time, it may nonetheless no longer "disprove" evolution. in actuality, whether this phenomenon could desire to be shown to be the artwork of an all-effective author without shred of doubt, it may nonetheless no longer disprove evolution, because of the fact evolution would not describe the action of extra-terrestrial bodies. Evolution describes the technique by utilising which organic and organic populations replace over the years.
2016-10-02 05:55:52 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The moon's rotation has been tidally locked by earth's gravity, making its day the same length as one orbit around the earth. Therefore, we always see the same side - with a little bit more around the edges.
2007-03-01 15:09:01 · answer #4 · answered by hznfrst 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes. The Moon is now in a situation where its rotation and revolution are the same, so we always see the same side.
;-D But it sort of wobbles. You can see a movie online.
2007-03-01 15:14:05 · answer #5 · answered by China Jon 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋