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- 4. The Moon and the Earth – a View from Space
4. The Moon and the Earth – a View from Space
What do we see as the Moon orbits the Earth?
Use information from this Moon phases calendar to help you find out how what we see as the Moon orbits the Earth. Go to the Moon connection website to find out more.
Starter questions
- Why does the Moon shine?
- In this image, how can you tell which side the Sun is?
- What positions do the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon have to be in for a full Moon to be seen from the Earth?
- Does the side of the Moon that faces the Earth change while the Moon orbits the Earth?
Extra questions
- What position would the Moon have to be in to block out the Sun and cause a solar eclipse? Why doesn’t this happen every month?
- The Earth is moving at about 1000 kilometres an hour in its orbit around the Sun. Why don’t we feel as though we are moving?
- What do you think the dark and light patches on the Moon are?
- More than 2000 years ago, the Greeks used a lunar eclipse to prove that the Earth was round. How did they do it?
More information
- “Our View from New Zealand” is our view of the Moon from New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere.
- The Moon’s appearance changes, depending on how much of it we can see. This depends on where the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun are in relation to each other in space.
- The Moon takes the same amount of time – 27.3 days – to rotate once and to orbit the Earth once.
- The Moon’s orbit is tilted 5 degrees to the plane of the Earth’s orbit, and so it is often above or below the Sun-Earth line when the Moon is full or new. This is why we don’t get a solar and a lunar eclipse each month.
- When there is a full Moon and it is in the right place, Earth’s round shadow covers the whole moon. This is a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses are more common than solar eclipses.
- The Earth’s diameter is 4 times the Moon’s diameter, but the Earth is 50 times bigger in volume than the Moon and has 80 times the mass.
- The Moon has mountains and craters and large, smoother, dark areas called “maria”. All the features on the Moon are named after famous mathematicians, scientists, and astronomers.