The Moon transits the Earth as seen by EPOXI

This animation, created by Don Lindler for the EPOXI team, shows the Moon passing directly in front of the Earth, a view impossible to see from the Earth itself.

More info: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/07/17/holy-frak-moon-tran...

EPOXI site: http://epoxi.umd.edu/

Higher-res version: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/epoxi_transit.html
Credit: Don Lindler/NASA/EPOXI Team

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• epoxi
• earth
• moon
• bad
• astronomy

[ORACLE063]

What a beautiful jewel we live on.

[Photomixers]

Watching the Earth rotate by 3.75 degrees per frame, once every 15 minutes for 24 hours would have been very dull, so we speeded it up to 6 frames per second, for your viewing convenience.

[markunsz]

Está la mitad de la Tierra iluminada y la Luna en cambio apenas se le ve nada iluminada?? no lo comprendo

[askjiir]

The moon is made of very dark material. Look how dark it is compared to earth, even though they are both exposed to the same sunlight.

[Kindahuge]

@trewryan The earth rotates at ~1000mph, so the hours passing versus the speed you're seeing on video is accurate. The moon is in fact moving at a different speed than the earth, though it's hard to eyeball if you don't already know it mathematically. Think about the fact that you can see the moon a few hours before dark up until a little bit after sunrise sometimes. Their speeds in different parts of the world appear to "overlap" and so it will be visible for longer periods.

[Kindahuge]

@LunarTuner You're saying that someone who gave this video a thumbs down, for a reason that may be as simple as not finding astronomical occurrences interesting or "cool," disagrees with reality? I believe they're saying you're insulting people for not finding the phenomenon as interesting as you do. Haven't seen them call it fake.

[Kindahuge]

@fanbutton Nah, this isn't a satellite man. This is a view from a spacecraft that had previously ejected an impact probe vessel onto a comet, to test the materials below the surface. So you're seeing something that essentially is (relatively) slowly getting further away from the earth. In the very short duration of time that this video shows, you'd never notice that the earth's getting farther away. So its angle to the earth remains a straight line, no orbit : )

[LunarTuner]

@fanbutton, it's not disagreement with ME that defines mental illness. It's a disagreement with reality. Any psychologist will tell you that paranoia and the failure to accept unmistakable, rational concepts are elements pointing to mental illness. Don't take my word for it--go have a chat with your doctor.

[fanbutton]

@LunarTuner That's a fine way to win people's opinion by calling them mentally ill should they happen to disagree with you. Well you know what? I think that you are mentally ill. You think the way to win people's agreement is by twisting their arms.

[fanbutton]

@trewryan I am even more confused. Shouldn't the artificial satellite be orbiting the earth? Yet the direction of the Sun's light, on the Earth, never moves as seen by the satellite. How is that the artificial satellite is able to remain stationary in regard to its position to the Earth? Even at that distance, it still should be affected by the Eath's gravitational influence.

[Willox309]

@VIPaki1 The moon ran the dinosaurs over! D: