Half Moon

Dec 8, 2009 by Naomi.

How can the moon look like it is cut straight in half when the round earth is cutting off the reflection from the sun? I understand the ancients figured it out. Why can’t I? It is one of those things I never thought of before. Probably because where I live among tall trees and cloudy skies I don’t see the moon all that much to compare the phases. At other times the white thing in the sky is simply lop sided not cut so neatly in half. Don’t I think about what is causing the illusion? Is it an illusion?

The moon is real. I know that. Men have walked on it. Actually set foot on it the day my son was on his way to Viet Nam. “One small step for man,” said Neil Armstrong, “One big step for mankind.” as he moved out of the rover that had landed on the surface only hours before unknown to mankind as we know it. How different our perception is now. Not only with the information he brought back but the subsequent pieces of the moon that were since brought back by other vehicles. I touched one in a laboratory once. Not a piece of earth as I know it from gardening in my back yard but dirt made up of elements known to scientists on this “small blue dot” so called by Carl Sagan. That’s what the view looks like from outer space.

It would be cool to really get that view. Maybe I still can. As of now the cost of a ride into space beyond the 40,000 ft level airlines take me is prohibitive but astronauts have done it and robot space ships will continue to do so. About my chances? Only time will tell.

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