The featured image shows an orange sky with clouds across the bottom and several bright stars near the top center. Just at the top of the cloud deck on the left is a half-lit Moon. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.
这张特色图片显示了橙色的天空，底部有云，顶部中心附近有几颗明亮的星星。左侧云层顶部是半明半暗的月亮。有关更多详细信息，请参阅说明。
2023年10月21日 Quarter Moons Image Credit & Copyright: Marcella Giulia Pace Explanation: Half way between New Moon and Full Moon is the Moon’s first quarter phase. That’s a quarter of the way around its moonthly orbit. At the first quarter phase, half the Moon’s visible side is illuminated by sunlight. For the Moon’s third quarter phase, half way between Full Moon and New Moon, sunlight illuminates the other half of the visible lunar disk. At both first and third quarter phases, the terminator, or shadow line separating the lunar night and day, runs down the middle. Near the terminator, long shadows bring lunar craters and mountains in to sharp relief, making the quarter phases a good time to observe the Moon. But in case you missed…
2022年8月25日 Tiangong Space Station Transits the Moon Image Credit & Copyright: Lucy Yunxi Hu Explanation: The rugged lunar south polar region lies at the top of this colorful portrait of a last quarter Moon made on August 20. Constructed from video frames and still images taken at Springrange, New South Wales, Australia it also captures a transit of China’s Tiangong Space Station. The transit itself was fleeting, taking the space station less than a second to cross the shadowed and sunlit lunar disk. The low Earth orbiting Tiangong is at an altitude of about 400 kilometers, while the Moon is some 400,000 kilometers away. Subtle color differences along the bright lunar surface are revealed in the multiple stacked frames. Not visible to the eye, they…
2019 September 26 Da Vinci Rise Image Credit & Copyright: Likai Lin Explanation: An old Moon rose this morning, its waning sunlit crescent shining just above the eastern horizon before sunrise. But earthshine, light reflected from a bright planet Earth, lit the shadowed portion of the lunar disk and revealed most of a familiar lunar near side to early morning risers. In fact, a description of earthshine in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth’s oceans illuminating the Moon’s dark surface was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. One lunation ago this old Moon also rose above the eastern horizon. Its sunlit crescent and da Vinci glow were captured in stacked exposures from the Badain Jilin Desert of Inner Mongolia, China on August…
