I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Astronomy Tuesday


Gob. Smacked.

This looks like an amateurish animation in a bad sci-fi movie, but it is actually a series of photographs taken by NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory last month showing our moon passing in front of the Earth.  (That's mostly the Pacific Ocean you're seeing on Earth -- you can see the west coast of North America moving away to the right, and Australia coming into view in the bottom left.)

This is also a good look at the dark side of the moon -- the side that is always turned away from us. It's comparatively featureless, lacking the dark seas and big craters of the near side, and looks thoroughly dowdy compared to the blue jewel behind it.

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