If the Earth had no atmosphere, our satellite could be seen both at night and during the day. But our planet has an atmosphere, so what’s the secret?
People are used to observing the Moon only at night, although it can sometimes be seen in the daytime sky. Why this happens and why during the day our satellite cannot be seen as often as some would like, scientists explain in an article for publication. Live science.
The main reason people can see the Moon is because it reflects light from the Sun and, due to its proximity to Earth, is the second brightest object in the sky after our star, scientists say. This is why the Moon can be seen at night, and sometimes even during the day. But the moon is not always visible during the day. This is due both to the Earth’s atmosphere itself and to our satellite’s orbital cycle.
According to scientists, if there was no atmosphere on Earth, when viewed from its surface, the Moon could be seen 24 hours a day. But the Moon has its phases, and when it moves between the Earth and the Sun, its side illuminated is not always facing us. And this makes it almost invisible from the surface of the planet.
Photo: SciTech Daily
“Particles of different gases in our atmosphere scatter sunlight, and for the Moon to be visible during the day, its light must overcome this scattered sunlight. This light is so bright that it eclipses starlight during the day, but it does not it always eclipses the light reflected from the moon, ”says Edward Guinan (of Villan University, Pennsylvania, USA.
According to Guinan, starlight seen from Earth is a million billion times less bright than the light of the Sun and millions of times fainter than the light of the Moon.
Astronomers use surface brightness to estimate the apparent brightness of objects in space, such as galaxies or nebulae. To do this, they measure the amount of light reaching Earth in the region of the night sky observed by our planet. Since the Moon is closer to the Earth than the stars, its surface brightness is greater than the surface brightness of the sky, which means we can easily see it glowing in daylight.
But how well the moon will be visible during the day is affected by the season of observation, the current phase of the moon, and how cloudless the sky is.
Photo: BBC
According to scientists, our satellite can be seen during the day for about 25 days a month. On other days, the Moon is in a new moon or full moon phase. And therefore it can only be seen at night. The moon is visible in the sky for about 12 hours a day, but its appearance does not always coincide with daylight hours. For example, in winter at some latitudes, when the day is shorter here, the Moon is not so easy to capture during the day.
“The moon is best seen during the day, one week after the new moon and one week after the full moon. In the first case, our satellite is visible in the afternoon, in the second case, in the morning. During these periods, the Moon can be observed during the day for several hours, sometimes for 5 “6 hours a day,” says Guinan.
As already written Focusscientists have discovered how the moon appeared. True, the new study has only confirmed the long-standing theory of the origin of our satellite, although an important refinement to this hypothesis has appeared.
Also Focus wrote it The moon was in the frame along with the Earth, at a time when our planet was flying around the “Lucy” spacecraft and taking pictures of our planet and its satellite. By the way, this device will explore distant asteroids that are in the vicinity of Jupiter.
