NATS 1740 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: New Moon, The Moons, Ecliptic

• School: York University
• Department: Natural Science
• Course: NATS 1740
• Professor: Michael De Robertis, Alireza Rafiee

Document Summary

The moon takes 27. 3 day to go once around earth (sidereal period), but phases have a period of. + earth rotates on its axis (counterclockwise), there are 8 different phases of orbit. Earth is always 50% in light and the half is in dark (night to day = terminator), the circle sunset-noon- sunrise-midnight-sunset . + the moon is pretty small, same with earth (50% in light, half is in dark). The moon keeps the same face to earth => we never see the far side (don"t have to be the dark side). + most of the phase facing us illuminated by the sun and half is in dark. + combination of bright and dark faces change as the moon orbits earth due to earth"s changing position. + new moon => waning crescent => last quarter => waning gibbous => full moon. => waxing gibbous => first quarter => waxing crescent => new moon. (this takes 29. 5 days)