Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How The Moon Shine?


The moon, one of a satellite in the space, rotates on its axis around the earth, and "shines" when the sun's light beams onto its surface, and is reflected back to earth.
The moon shines by reflecting sunlight. Like Earth, half of the moon is always lit by the sun's direct rays, and the other half is in shadow. Unfortunately, only one side of the moon is visible to us on the earth, as it takes the moon the same length of time to orbit on its axis, as it takes for it to orbit the earth.
You may have seen that the moon does not always look round. Remember when the moon travels around Earth, different parts of its bright side are seen from Earth. Without the sun, there would be no moonlight.
The lunar month is divided into halves. During the first half, lasting approximately 14 days, the sun's light unrelentingly strikes the moon, which has no atmosphere or air to protect it from these rays, and brings the temperature of the moon to above that of the boiling point. The second half of the lunar month plunges the moon into cold, dark nights.
A Full Moon rising can be a dramatic celestial sight, and Full Moons can have many names, such as tonight's Full Moon, and Harvest Moon.

Picture taken from: bayuaditya17.blogspot.com

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