If we lived on the sun, would we still see the phases of the moon?

Answer 1

Well first off, if it were even possible to live on the sun, we would probably not even see the moon with the naked eye. But if we viewed it with a telescope, the answer will still be no. As long as the moon is not hidden behind the earth, we will constantly see it as a point of light (the light that reflects back to us from the sun). The only reason we see moon phases in the first place is because of the moon's position in its orbit around the earth. Different angles made with the sun display varying amounts of light to us on the earth. So if we were on the sun, we wouldn't see those "irregularities"...we'd just see the side of the moon that the sun shed light on in the first place.

Answer 2

We see the phases of the moon because of the relative position of the sun and the moon as seen from the earth. When the moon is full that means that the earth is between the sun and the moon. When the moon is half full then the moon is on either the left or the right side of the earth as see from the sun. When the moon is new, no moon at night, then the moon is between the earth and the sun.

So, the answer to your question is no. As seen from the sun the moon is always full. For that matter so are all of the planets.

If you think for a minute, anything between the sun and the earth will be seen from the earth to have phases. So, Venus has phases and, much less obviously, so does little Mercury. In fact, it is the fact that Venus has obvious phases the provided the proof that the earth cannot be at the center of things.

All of the planets and their moons beyond the earth do not have phases and always look ‘full’ to us just as they do to the sun.

Answer 3

Well first off, if it were even possible to live on the sun, we would probably not even see the moon with the naked eye. But if we viewed it with a telescope, the answer will still be no. As long as the moon is not hidden behind the earth, we will constantly see it as a point of light (the light that reflects back to us from the sun). The only reason we see moon phases in the first place is because of the moon's position in its orbit around the earth. Different angles made with the sun display varying amounts of light to us on the earth. So if we were on the sun, we wouldn't see those "irregularities"...we'd just see the side of the moon that the sun shed light on in the first place.

Answer 4

1.) YOU CANNOT LIVE ON THE SUN.
It is intensely hot in the thousands and thousands of degrees hot. The Sun is a body of radiation and intensely hot gases, with a surface of molten gas. Hydrogen is being transformed into helium through nuclear fusion deep within the star. This throws off radiation and intense heat.

2.) However, if you could turn your back to the Sun and look outwards toward the Earth and the Moon, the Moon would be bright and full all the time that it was not hidden by the Earth.
As the Moon went around behind the Earth it would be partially hidden and seem to join with the Earth - two bright spots merging into one. Then as it came around on the other side, it would look like the Earth was bulging out on one side until it finally stood out as a separate object some distance from the Earth. Crossing in front of the Earth, you would most likely see a white moon passing over a round blue sphere, which is Earth.

Answer 5

Consider a drawing where you are looking down from above the north (or south) pole of the sun. The pole of the sun would be in the center of a circle representing the sun. The earth-moon system would be a pair of circles some distance away.

Now, consider yourself being at the 12-o'clock position on the sun circle. You would see a slighlty different part of the moon than you would if you were at the 3 o'clock position (or 9 o'clock position, depending on how you drew the picture), because of parallax.

So, it would seem that because only 50% of the moon is illuminated you should see an exceedingly small sliver of unilluminated moon. But since you are on the light source and the light travels outward in all possible directions the moon is illuminated from your position, so you still would see a full moon (because the sun isn't infinitely small compared to the angular size of the moon slightly more than 50% of the moon is illuminated). Travel but a few miles above your position and you would (with sensitive enough instruments) be able to detect shadow on the moon.

There is another factor. Light from the limb of the sun (as we earthlings see it) is dimmer than that from the central part of the sun (as we see it) and this is known as limb darkening. The limb darkening might be detectable on the moon with very sensitive instruments.

We see gibbous phases on all the superior (further from the sun than the earth) planets because WE are not the illuminating source, and we see those planets from widely different angles.

Of course if you were on the sun and were extremely tall, a slight gibbous phase of the moon might be detected, but that's not a part of the question. From the question given, everyone is correct, and the moon would not be seen as going through phases.

Answer 6

We'll never live on the sun. With all of the protection and technology, we would literaly vaporize before we could get within a thousand miles of it. If you just mean it as an "if" sense, no. The phases of the moon is where the side of the moon is aglow by the sun and we see it as a different phase because that's the side the sun is shining on. It would just be full all the time because the sun is always shining on it from the side facing the sun. We would always face that side.

Answer 7

The answer is definintely YES, but in a different way than we see it from the earth. Since the moon revolves around the earth, and does so slowly (it takes 27.3 days to make a complete revolution), there would be phases of the moon where it would be partially, and at times totally blocked by the earth. Of course, this type of phase is nothing like how we see it from earth. In fact, seeing phases from the surface of the sun would actually be ECLIPSES.

Answer 8

Bhajun is incorrect Earth is very visible from the solar surface (ignoring the obvious health effects of such a venture). From the solar surface, the light reflecting off the Earth's oceans would be shining right back at you, making the Earth appear quite bright (perhaps twice as much as Venus).

Think about it, Venus is smaller than Earth, but we can see venus even when it is on the far side of it's orbit (distance > 1.0 AU). So if Venus is visible from a distance > 1.0 AU, then Earth definately is.

If you use the 4D simulator called "Celestia" which you can download for free, you can go anywhere in the universe, including the solar surface. The simulation represents what a person would actually see from that location. From the solar surface, not only is Earth visible, but so is the moon, and an observer standing on the solar surface would easily be able to make the two apart.

To answer the original question...

From the solar surface, EVERYTHING (i.e. the moon, Earth, Venus, Mercury, asteroids, planets, EVERYTHING in the solar system) would appear to be in it's "full" phase.

Cheers ^_^

Answer 9

The phases of the moon are the result of the angle of sunlight on the moon and our eyes. From the sun, every planet and moon would be fully illuminated (like a full moon) at all times.

Answer 10

If it were possible to live on the sun, we probably would not be able to see ANYTHING besides the sun. Imagine that you're in your house at night with all the lights on, and you open the door and try to look into your unlit yard. Since the light is originating at our location (the sun) we probaby would not be able to see it bouncing off of any of the planets/moons in our solary system, nor would we likely be able to see other stars. However, IF we could see the sun, it would always appear full, since we would see the light heading it head-on and bouncing back to us. The only way we would not see a full moon would be if our line of sight was blocked by another object, such as Earth.