Phase of the Moon
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Watch the phase of the moon! It was about noon when the young crescent
moon was hovering above this rock formation in southern Germany.
And do you notice the similar "phase" of the rocks in the foreground?
What can we learn from this?
If you look at the moon at day and see other sunlit stuff on the earth
in the
same viewing direction, you might notice that the direction of
illumination
is the same. Furthermore the angle of incident seems to
be the same: the moons
phase is nearly the same as the "phase" of the
rocks in the above image. The light on the moon and on the rock
comes from the same direction!
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First, this little experiment is a strong hint that the moon is illuminated by the same source as the earth, aka the sun. And it also explains more or less the phase itself. But furthermore it shows that earth and moon have the same large distance to the sun. The moons motion around the earth is quite small compared to the suns distance. If the moon were much further away from earth, its phase would be fuller.
By the way, which item do you think fits the moon best?
Considering the shape, it is probably a round ball.
Considering color and albedo, it resembles a bit more the one on the stick
right to the center.
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