ASTR 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Tidal Locking, Orbital Period, New Moon
6 Sep 2016
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Watch motion of sun, figure out that earth is a curved surface. Shadow of earth on moon during lunar eclipse (infer that earth is a sphere) Idea we can test (has to be falsifiable able to be proven wrong) Occum"s razor simple is better than really complicated. We can see the moon from earth b/c it reflects sunlight. Moon orbits earth at about 30 earth diameters away. Orbit is about 5 degrees (with respect to the earth"s) Rotates synchronously (keeps same face to the earth: orbital period = rotation period (tidal locking of moon to earth) Moon has night & a day (b/c the sun illuminates it) Changing phase follows an orderly pattern over the lunar orbial period. *always see the same phase at the same time of day: new moon = noon, full moon = midnight, quarter moons = dawn & dusk. Eclipse when a planet or moon casts a shadow on another body.
