by APOD Robot » Tue Feb 01, 2022 5:05 am
[img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_220201.jpg[/img] Moon Phases 2022
Explanation: What will the Moon phase be on your birthday this year? It is
hard to predict because the
Moon's appearance changes nightly. As the
Moon orbits the
Earth, the half illuminated by the
Sun first becomes increasingly visible, then decreasingly visible. The
featured video animates images and altitude data taken by NASA's Moon-orbiting
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to show all 12 lunations that appear this year, 2022 -- as seen from Earth's northern (
southern) hemisphere. A single
lunation describes one full cycle of our Moon, including all of its
phases. A full
lunation takes about 29.5 days, just under a month (
moon-th). As each
lunation progresses, sunlight reflects from the
Moon at different angles, and so
illuminates different features differently. During all of this, of course, the
Moon always keeps the same face toward the
Earth. What is less apparent night-to-night is that the
Moon's apparent size changes slightly, and that a slight wobble called a
libration occurs as the
Moon progresses along its
elliptical orbit.
[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220201.html] [img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_220201.jpg[/img] [size=150]Moon Phases 2022[/size][/url]
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