A smaller body orbiting a larger, primary body, where the primary body is not a star.
Questions tagged [moon]
391 questions
115
votes
6 answers
Could we send a man safely to the Moon in a rocket without knowledge of general relativity?
I'm wondering if it's possible to send a man to the Moon using equations consistent with Newtonian gravity and without the elaborate tools of Einstein gravity. Are the predictions made by Newtonian gravity sufficiently precise to plan a successful…
Dargscisyhp
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Why doesn't the Moon fall onto the Earth?
Why doesn't the Moon fall onto the Earth? For that matter, why doesn't anything rotating a larger body ever fall onto the larger body?
Adir Peretz
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90
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5 answers
Why does a full moon seem uniformly bright from earth, shouldn't it be dimmer at the "border"?
I know the moon is not uniformly grey, it has details, craters, it's not just a colored uniform circle from earth, however, when in a full moon, the intensity of the light received from different parts of the "disc" seems very similar.
Let's define…
Santropedro
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4 answers
Why does moonlight have a lower color temperature?
Moonlight has a color temperature of 4100K, while sunlight has a higher color temperature of more than 5000K.
But objects illuminated by moonlight don't look yellower to the eye. They look bluer. This holds for indoor scenes (like my hall) and for…
Kartick Vaddadi
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57
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8 answers
Why CAN we see the new moon at night?
I understand that the Moon's phases are determined by its position in orbit relative to the Sun. (See: Full Story on the Moon). The "shadow" is not cast by the Earth (a common misconception - this is actually a lunar eclipse), but by the moon's body…
ArchitectofAges
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49
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6 answers
Can the apparent equal size of sun and moon be explained or is this a coincidence?
Is there a possible explanation for the apparent equal size of sun and moon or is this a coincidence?
(An explanation can involve something like tide-lock effects or the anthropic principle.)
Phira
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44
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11 answers
If you sliced the moon in half perfectly, would it hold together?
Just a big ol' slice down the middle. Would it drift apart over time, or eventually fuse back together?
Alex
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43
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5 answers
Why is a new moon not the same as a solar eclipse?
Forgive the elementary nature of this question:
Because a new moon occurs when the moon is positioned between the earth and sun, doesn't this also mean that somewhere on the Earth, a solar eclipse (or partial eclipse) is happening?
What, then, is…
JYelton
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41
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7 answers
Why does the full Moon appear?
I know that the full Moon appears when Sun, Moon and Earth are in a straight line, but if we consider that they are in straight line, why is the Moon illuminated?
I mean to say that Earth should block all the rays of the Sun and shouldn't allow any…
Awesome boy
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37
votes
6 answers
If the moon had a mirror surface, would the earth be equally illuminated as by the sun during full moon, or would it require a different mirror shape?
Suppose the apparent diameters of the sun and the moon are exactly the same (which in fact very close to the real situation). If the moon had a perfect mirror surface, would the reflected visible light of a full moon (at night) illuminate the earth…
Deschele Schilder
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Why does the moon sometimes appear giant and a orange red color near the horizon?
I've read various ideas about why the moon looks larger on the horizon. The most reasonable one in my opinion is that it is due to how our brain calculates (perceives) distance, with objects high above the horizon being generally further away than…
logicbird
34
votes
3 answers
Why does the Moon face Earth with the same side?
I know that the rotation period of the moon equals its revolution period. It's just so astonishing that these 2 values have such a small difference. I mean, what is the probability of these 2 values to be practically the same? I don't believe this…
Alex
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3 answers
Is there a maximum distance from a planet that a moon can orbit?
Given a planet that orbits a star, and a moon that orbits that planet, is it possible to define a maximum orbital radius of that moon, beyond which the moon would no longer orbit the planet, but the star instead?
I initially (naively) thought this…
leeman
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29
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4 answers
Why doesn't the Moon disrupt the orbits of geostationary satellites?
If a passing star can jostle comets in the Oort Cloud, why doesn't the Moon disrupt the orbits of high-flying satellites?
Or does it? Maybe the satellites need periodic course corrections?
RASx64
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29
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2 answers
How does a laser from Earth manage to hit the Moon with precision?
A question I've been asked is how a laser, fired from earth, would hit the moon without "leading it" (or hit it with precision). When firing a laser at the moon, it takes about 3 seconds to reach it. Given the combined effects of orbit, rotation,…
Omnivore
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