This wonderful video was shot a few days ago in New Zealand. It shows the Moon rising in real-time - this is not a time lapse – over Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, N.Z. Take four minutes out of your day to watch this and wonder at the dance of the planetary spheres in the dark of space, and sense how small we are. Feel giddy!
Source: NASA http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130130.html
2 comments:
I've long looked at the moon and thought of it as a symbol of how nonsensical 'common sense' can be: the moon is clearly 'rising' here, and yet, in fact, it's actually moving in the opposite direction -- it's only the rotation of the Earth that makes it appear to be moving in the direction 'common sense' says it is. (If this isn't clear, I've found it's most easily grasped if you are able to look at the position of the moon in the sky at the same time on two successive nights: during those nights, the moon appears to be moving East to West; but at the same time on successive nights, its position has 'jumped' from West to East, reflecting its actual movement in orbit around the Earth.)
Thanks very much for that, Nick: a truly wonderful clip. It answers a question I've often had, a question to which I've never actually sought out the answer beyond trying to picture it in my head... the moon is the other way up on the other side of the world!
I'm impressed. I hadn't noticed that it was "upside-down"!
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