A Hazy Harvest Moon
20.09.2024

For northern hemisphere dwellers, September's Full Moon was the Harvest Moon. On September 17/18 the sunlit lunar nearside passed into shadow, just grazing Earth's umbra, the planet's dark, central shadow cone, in a partial lunar eclipse.

Phases of the Moon
10.03.2018

Look at the Moon every night and its visible sunlit portion gradually changes. 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.

Moon Games
1.08.2008

The Moon's measured diameter is around 3,476 kilometers (2,160 miles). But apparent angular size, or the angle covered by an object, can also be important to Moon enthusiasts. Angular size depends on distance, the farther away an object is, the smaller an angle it covers.

Rotating Moon from LRO
18.03.2018

No one, presently, sees the Moon rotate like this. That's because the Earth's moon is tidally locked to the Earth, showing us only one side. Given modern digital technology, however, combined with many detailed images returned by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a high resolution virtual Moon rotation movie has been composed.

Fly Me to the Moon
17.01.2017

No, this is not a good way to get to the Moon. What is pictured is a chance superposition of an airplane and the Moon. The contrail would normally appear white, but the large volume of air toward the setting Sun preferentially knocks away blue light, giving the reflected trail a bright red hue.

Crepuscular Moon Rays over Denmark
27.07.2022

This moon made quite an entrance. Typically, a moonrise is quiet and serene. Taking a few minutes to fully peek above the horizon, Earth's largest orbital companion can remain relatively obscure until it rises high in the nighttime sky.

Moon Shadow versus Sun Reflection
17.07.2017

What are those lights and shadows crossing the Earth? As the featured five-second time-lapse video progresses, a full day on planet Earth is depicted as seen from Japan's Himawari-8 satellite in geostationary orbit high above the Pacific Ocean.

Full Moon Geminids
13.12.2019

The dependable annual Geminid meteor shower will be near its peak tonight (December 13/14) and before tomorrow's dawn. As Earth crosses through the dusty trail of active asteroid 3200 Phaethon the meteors will flash through the sky from the shower's radiant in Gemini.

The Barren Moon
31.10.1996

The above photo, taken as the Apollo 17 astronauts orbited the Moon in 1972, depicts the stark lunar surface around the Eratosthenes and Copernicus craters. Many similar images of a Moon devoid of life are familiar to denizens of the space age.

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
3.12.2006

This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These...