Description of a moonlit night from various books. Moonlit sky Why can't we see the sky on the Moon?

(From sketches about nature)

On a moonlit night, the cold gathers into myriads of purple grains and crumbles before us, in front of a strange light. I was at a loss: what was the main thing at this time? Lighting?
The moon itself, large, impartial, flew in the dark sky through the sparse smoke of clouds, through our premonition. In my thoughts, the moon was the point from which the beginning was counted, it dominated all concepts, defined them, and there was some kind of reproach for me, silent, a reproach within me, but of such strength that I constantly did not forget such a time...
He wanted to guess about something, something unnaturally plausible, as if he wanted to see himself from the outside...
* * *
The moon, clearly illuminated, rushed through the smoky clouds, detailed and thin in outline. The dull white snow on the ground occasionally brightened, the sky brightened, and shadows from trees and huts were visible. Strange light! Everything in it was visible, but barely visible. In this light, the world is several times larger than during the day, and behind the usually distant moon one could still see a huge space, more compressed, more visible...
I wanted to fly above the ground, silently, and almost believed in the supernatural that night...
When looking at the darkish snow, spots flickered in the volume of air.
* * *
The moon glows, spinning, hanging distantly, subtly and independently; the eternal sky is infinitely detailed with the depth of shades and distances, but the sky is the opposite of everything that is on earth... What is the moon? Why do we make things up? Is it because they are rich in their own history?
* * *
The air under the moonlight is thinning, the surface is snowy in pale blue. Under the cold and piercing wind, birch branches press against each other, flocks of snow run and rush everywhere, stopping like a whirlwind into a cloud, and now it settles under its shadow...
How the thin branches of a birch tree tremble, the wind rustles and whistles, and you are the only one here who thinks about comfort... And a round dance of snowflakes sweeps up a snowdrift: the dance is a cloud, your cheeks and hands go numb - and you are running away from the cold - you are forced to play in nature.
The wind rustles and whistles, sweeping snowdrifts like light snow...
* * *
The moonlit sky above the silhouettes of trees is a calm mixture of green and blue. The sky unstoppably pulls your gaze towards itself, leaving it there, dissolving it in spinning lines...
A pale light streams, and the distance beyond the sky and horizon is bright. A flickering light, entering the forest from above, pierces it... For the first minutes, the light keeps you dim, but after that you suddenly see everything sharply - you see at night, when it’s like you’re not supposed to see...
And the forest rings under the moon with motionless branches, an inaudible ringing under the deep sky, rising, and betrayed by the subtle shine of dark snow.
The forest rings, from the tree trunks there are shadows and planes. It’s strange when there are shadows at night, creepy in a huge forest in the moonlight, because you are alone, you are forced to follow a premonition... You are strong, for you a premonition is a game, a trap for revealing the meaning... But the strangeness remains, maybe like inertia , either we feel more than we know...
With your gaze you look ahead of the silhouettes of the trees, you step over the shadows - how light it is! The subtle ringing of branches, the whispering of snowy glades - was everything made up by you?
* * *
The moon shines through the bare branches of the tree, the branches reach towards the light, in them the moonlight freezes into tiny lines.
The winter sky is further from the earth at night than at the same time in summer - all only under the moon.
* * *
Yellow, all bruised, the moon slowly rose above a small cluster of gray clouds... A hard frosty wind... Blue darkness nearby. You're suffocating from the burning touch
* * *
The area in the dim light of the moon stretches far - as far as the eye can see... A succession of clouds passed by, covering the moon with a thin wavy veil, and the whole sky was filled with something, and the area darkened, then the clouds completely hid the moon within themselves, then suddenly releasing it, and it glowed with a pale, open smile...
But the deserted area still remained as if it shouldn’t exist, as if everything was arranged for us, as if the moonlit night had some meaning, a meaning that we still cannot understand...
* * *
The sky on a moonlit night behind the moon is gray, and everything from the moon to the earth seems completely empty, but visible. Empty... light darkness. We are surprised by what we see, by what we can see.
* * *
On a moonlit night you evaluate beliefs and ideas. A motionless shimmering area with lonely silent trees, a sleeping village, dark - everything seems mysterious and eternal...
You look at night for a long, long time, and your thoughts cannot escape from some basis...

Quiet moonlit night. Shadows on the snow. The sky is dirty blue, and near the horizon it merges vaguely with the snowy distance.
Moonlit night is a desert night, cold; the shadows on the snow are sharp, accompanying you. The night is beautiful. Why do we feel beauty? How do we want to understand it? Are we now bringing beauty into the night with us or, more precisely, are we taking a particle that we need?
... No, no, we are one, and there is one thing in nature and in us...
* * *
It’s strange, the silent moon hardly illuminates the dark earth - only the heavens around... And on the ground there is a barely noticeable pale reflection and slightly noticeable shadows...
But everything is somehow voluminous, everything is rich in secrets...
Dogs bark loudly, frogs sing from the pond, distant voices of people are heard
* * *
In the quiet twilight time, the silhouettes of trees show us what is close, warm and mysteriously fabulous; and behind them is a violet-blue light sky in the distance with an orange moon
* * *
Now I knew why a moonlit night or early morning seemed beautiful, but alarmingly incomprehensible: I had no habit of them, they were always perceived as a miracle, as a revelation...

After a tiring time of day, a low full puna appears. For a long time, she only adds detail to the landscape: a sharply outlined orange circle, separately visible. But behind the dark silhouettes, the still dusty road, the gray warmth of the area, it begins to glow with a loose and soft orange touch to the quiet twilight...
And already the soft light is gathered into one bright fireplace, prevailing in a dirty blue environment...
* * *
In the summer at dusk, the greenery seems to be torn away from itself and frozen like that; The calmed sky is pale and pale, all the way down to the dusty roads. The lake is smooth and light, the gaze scatters over its surface; the air is already swirling visibly into loose spots... The sky holds the full moon, it is calm, waiting for its time when, shimmering with a copper tint, it will express the night with the singing of nightingales...
And the night is fresh, blue, with a bright horizon at the place of sunset, the silhouettes of trees running towards us in all lines at once, a wonderful silence, noisily moving away from you to the farthest forest; the night is fresh with the coolness born from everywhere, which pushes you either the smell of dew and greenery from the lowlands, low and slow in movement, or the coolness - the freedom of the vast and magical sky, all in the blue lunar twilight, and space rushes, capturing thoughts, and you get lost: everything your theories are discolored by the touch of the night... The moon itself is far away, somewhere behind the dark gardens, separately bright, but powerless in front of the dark village... everything, everything can be heard now. What time is it: you collect it into a single thing, but it diverges with every detail you notice... And the air is the rejection of everything.
* * *
Before dawn, the blue sky in the distance reveals white clouds, running greenish to the west. The horizon is a transition, lilac-red, it carried the earth towards it in the twilight illumination, and everything seemed to be moving to the east, and our attention.
Behind us at the bottom of the sky lies the full moon, behind the silhouettes of trees and houses. The moon, far away from itself in a bright yellow flicker, hid the last remnants of the summer night, in the gray greenery - the secret of sounds.
The wind is even, calm, the smell is strong, flat. The gray landscape holds thoughts as if suspended, and the pale lake with the reflection of dawn on the far shore continuously captures them in vague assemblies... We have so much immediate...
The smell is strong, above the ground, and a cool wind is pouring, and all unfamiliar sounds are ahead of them...
* * *
In summer, the moon is low over the dark earth and dark silhouettes of trees, over the distance. And the low, faintly violet, reddish dawn is in a hurry to replace the short night...
* * *
Moonlight spreads along the roads and plains, the gardens and ravines are dark, the pale lake is carried up into the inaccessibility of the sky, and as if you yourself are spreading under the moonlight splashes - you are everywhere: above the darkness of secrets, above the visible road, the bluish-silver frost of dew in the lowlands, you, elusive warmth and unexpected exposure, an accepting mind and extremely specific answers...
* * *
On a moonlit night, the silence is wide and the sounds are random. Silence, spinning, instantly and continuously goes into the sky.

* * *
On a moonlit night in the field from you everything is gray and silence, great... The low distance is juicy dark, the sky with an indefinitely low border. Everything is low, everything floats in silent and invisible streams of coolness. Your gaze is shattered by the twilight lighting, and it seems new and new, as if quite recently there were colored lights before it, and suddenly the lights ran away from the warm earth, leaving us bewildered by the momentary state of thoughts...
* * *
A mysterious moonlit night in a village or an early sonorous morning, unexpected by the sun and warmth - all the endless discovery of every detail, where during the discovery you can imagine many aspects of your secret and the secret of the beauty of the earth
In summer, far and near until noon are filled with joyful air, warm and bluish, penetrated by the sun's rays, and free, soaring... You are so happy about your world
* * *
And now I idolized the illumination of a moonlit night, when the area became mysteriously visible, when the illuminated blue sky was enormously cool, with rare distant stars..., and under the moon the sky was infinitely close, pouring greenish, under the moon the earth was large, silhouette-magical, dark...
* * *
There is a certain solemnity in a moonlit night: the earth darkens through the gray, the smell of the lowlands envelops the hills, and the flowing pale blue color from the moon in myriads of points silently touches the gray...
And the earth is sleeping.
* * *
At night we receive the world freshly and immediately from everywhere.
Now the light above is pale with a greenish tint - the moon. The heart is alarmed, sensing something other than beauty... The silent earth is deserted, the shadows in the night are always unusual, the terrain visible to the horizon - as if it should not be visible... The whole world is quiet, as if one thing concerns everything.
After the night we are wiser for the day.
* * *
At night, in general, we receive the world freshly and immediately from everywhere; on a moonlit night the sky is greenish: the pale illumination of the moon is pouring
the land is deserted, the shadows are unusual, the area itself, visible to the horizon, as if it should not be visible
silence: the leaf does not move, you can hear the distance
But my heart was worried, sensing something other than beauty
What?

At night, the full moon on the picturesque thin arch indifferently passed torn dark clouds: the area either brightened, revealing buildings, then imperceptibly and immediately darkened...
* * *
In autumn, the sky behind the moon is a space with an infinitely distant but visible border, clearly illuminated by the moon. And here on earth it is dark and damp, here we fit the low night into our consciousness...
* * *
The moon is dazzling, clearly illuminates the sky to the dark vault, everything on earth is seen as one, which is torn apart and cannot be torn apart by the wind. On the lake in the lunar path, the fiery whirlwinds are constantly scattering, deviating from the initial center.
* * *
Sometimes after twilight in late autumn, the moon that appears does not illuminate anything for a long, long time, much later, when the area around is already quiet under the moon and united by its light, the moon itself is the main event, and we are waiting for something...
Do we really invent something of our own for the world, and then believe what we have invented?

From the book "Nature"

On a cool August night, the distant moon shines brightly; Dogs bark in the village, roosters crow long before dawn.
The night is deep: the horizon of the sky is indefinitely close or far, the sky itself is heavy, but you feel at ease in this solemn passage of time. And the distance penetrates you: distant sounds are nearby; At night you are generally close to everything. The moon illuminates the deserted streets of the village, moon shadows are everywhere - it’s strange all around! Strange, solemn, great time!
It’s a strange time because we are trying to realize what we have seen, that we don’t need our own knowledge about the planet Moon now: do we really want to “realize” something through our feelings? That is, through knowledge obtained instantly, from scratch?
We do not enter into any contradictions; we certainly want to understand the ultimate connection between the landscape (with our Self, of course) and the Moon. This “aesthetic” connection, which literally turns you upside down, nevertheless remains incomprehensibly sublime...
It's light enough to read; the moonlight is slow... Everything around seems to be the opposite of what happens during the day; What is the point in the fact that we constantly wake up such beauty, that we seem to be spying on it? is that our world has a different state? The moon, moonlight provokes our thoughts about the fabulous, magical, unnatural, and we feel good from such thoughts - after all, we cover up some voids and problems with them.
In winter, the moon illuminates deserted glades of white snow, dark houses and trees: everywhere there are shadows and a gloomy sublime light, emphasizing your alienation, your loneliness, your consciousness.
Moonlight naturally revealed a relationship between us and nature that other states of day and night could not “reveal.” The moon hurried coldly in the sky illuminated by itself and with its light had a magnetic effect on the earth: we were fascinated by the moon, and by the terrain visible towards the moon, and by the secrets everywhere; empty darkness, slow and flowing, absorbed or amplified sounds...
And in the summer, low above the twilight and echoing night, all distant and large, the moon illuminated only open spaces, but it was still darker than in winter; however, the aura of mystery in the moonlight persisted at all times of the year. In the summer the sky under the moon was low, twilight, trickles of darkness apparently went up... And in the winter - the sky under the moon and behind the moon seemed so spacious that it was time to talk about an unexpected new celestial space...
Heated by our own relationships, we do not notice the beauty of the sky: what time is needed for a natural transition to the perception of the surrounding miracle? After all, it all exists: miracle, perception, and time! And there is nothing. As if everything is in someone else's current...
The sun was shining, the moon was shining; the moon, as something ethereal, was perceived with greater surprise than the sun, it created and kept more secrets, because, simply put, everything lay in the “organization” of the light space: it, indeed, in the moonlight turned out to be unusual.
With the streets and the entire area deserted, the space turned out to be cramped, filled with your conjectures, fantasies, filled with legends, beliefs... What else?

From the work “On Human Self-Sufficiency”

At night (spring? but there was already grass), suddenly, waking up, I felt with my heartbeat the intersecting meanings of time: worlds were layered, there was a loud silence, and... the haunting solemnity of pale moonlight burned outside the windows of a village house...
And the hut was permeated with solemn silence, as if lifted by an unknown sacrament.
I went out as if I had been summoned, without fear, trembling with inner incomprehensible courage and instantly expecting some kind of evil - not against myself! but in spite of everything,….expecting some kind of seamy side of the world that controls everything, everything, down to the smallest detail.
The moon was shining! On the cold grass, leaves, walls of the hut, on the silhouettes of distant buildings and trees, the moon left the silver of silence, pouring out and thinning with light. The entire cold sky nearby, dark green or dark blue, was visible and illuminated: it was brightened by the moon, even shaded by it. And the sky breathed with a sonorous silence, breathed the unspoken, the expected...
The big moon...looked, spoke about the non-randomness of the world, the moon showed connection, kinship,...strange kinship, rational (?). And a strange light! Slow, hanging in the dark air like light dotted lines...the light is pale, strong, heavy - unconscious?
And we are fast, we “escape” the influence of lunar pressure. We live in ordinary (daytime?) time...
The fabulous unnatural light of moonlight is a great provocation to us: after all, our mind only begins to act when there is a difference (in this case, time). There is a difference!
The moon, the moonlight, all this chorus of silence, all the organization of barely visible space, all this lunar solemnity - everything was a counterbalance to the day.
And you were rich in countless possibilities of events, and you became stronger for yourself, for the only time in which so much depended on you, and - more peaceful: your protest, your search, your difference - difference pulsated in your consciousness.

From the book "Arabesques"

Moonlight night

There is no greater contrast than people relaxing carefree on a moonlit night and perceiving the moon only as a detail of their own relaxation.
...and the moon was shining - open, inaccessibly distant, immensely sad, the moon looked at the earth, filling it to the horizon with sad light, and as if it was carrying some kind of secret with it... What?
...the low moonlit summer night is noisy, sonorous, mysterious; and it seems that you are breathing through noisy air, dark, silhouetted, you are not breathing - you are drinking... the summer moonlit night is cool, cool... in the distance, the coolness is frozen...
and the light of the moon is solemn, fading, slow, and all of this time is slow, like earthly fast time, unnoticed by you... when meeting the moonlight, it slows down: this makes it unusual!
the moon slows down your time! therefore, running moments “accumulate” on the “edge” of time, and now you are no longer on the “edge” of time, but on the surface of time, revealed by moonlight... and the “times” keep coming and coming!
Some kind of triumph, someone’s triumph is all around, but you cannot be spontaneous: you are constantly “looking back” at your own past, and here it is, nearby! ...times build a sad clearing, ever increasing
/low night because there is only darkness all around, but at a distance it seems to be light.!/
...a low summer night, and there, far in the sky, pale stars and rare clouds, sometimes gray, sometimes black, and the same sad and rarefied light of the moon...
And in winter the moon is already high, and the night sky is already high, high - visible! - visible from the snow-covered earth itself, visible with the same oncoming moonlight frozen on the way, and the darkness that should be there stretches somewhere to an unimaginable height, towards the horizon, and therefore on a winter moonlit night - lighter, on a winter moonlit night you yourself seem yourself - less /!/, so the whole winter moonlit night is more voluminous, more spacious, and the moon in the cold sky seems smaller, and its “sadness” is more inaccessible

* * *
The earth with all living things opens up to the moon, and unconsciously, subconsciously, a person turns his thoughts to himself, to evaluating himself
The earth opens up to the moonlight and anxiety is with us, an unexpected and incomprehensible self-esteem overtakes us, and it turns out that it “demands” to “handle” time somehow differently... How? and what is self-esteem?
The moon is a silent witness, a witness of our thoughts and actions, the moon is a great companion on our path...
Both the moon and the water reflection always carried with them something completely, completely new - for us. What?

From the book "Studies on Consciousness"

288. At night, pale moonlight pours onto the Earth, overflowing with the noise of life: I am here, in the midst of life, I am aware because I have consciousness, and my self, amazing for myself, is in my own consciousness, or even leads it ...And my consciousness is amazing to me: all this is a gift to me!
What are the “earthly limits” of awareness? Now, physiology will also “fail”, consciousness will fade away (from our point of view), and where will it be then? With a rich appreciation for life, with a non-repetitive memory: where will the memory be deployed?
Is it really only in the memory of loved ones?
I didn't believe
I didn’t believe it because the infinite cannot disappear within itself!
* * *
521. I should write out and re-experience, “reformulate” the descriptions of the moonlit night from my writings: the moon has a strange effect on consciousness
Consciousness “discovers” itself in new conditions – with different times!
And the moonlight, as if dispersed, was in some kind of balance with your inner one: it did not “impede” ... objective self-esteem
With the sad light of the moon over the dark joy of the summer landscape (or, as if independent from anything, the light of a distant moon over the brightening winter expanses), you were clearly aware of the presence of the Observer (!).
Physical. Indifferent.
Could this be the case?
* * *
522*...before the winter twilight, when the frosty blue evening held the huge sky, the moon was already shining: and the whole area under the huge sky was united by this incomprehensible blue integrity
The frozen moment seemed to catch the color of the whole picture before my eyes, but together with you!, and - held...
I knew that where the moon was, there at any time of the year time was deprived of its immediacy (?!), it (time itself) was nearby, but not in you (!).

Black firmament

If an inhabitant of the Earth could find himself on the Moon, three extraordinary circumstances would attract his attention before others.

The strange color of the daytime sky on the Moon would immediately catch your eye: instead of the usual blue dome, there would be a completely black sky dotted with the bright shine of the Sun! - many stars, clearly visible, but not twinkling at all. The reason for this phenomenon is the absence of an atmosphere on the Moon.

“The blue vault of a clear and pure sky,” says Flammarion in his characteristic picturesque language, “the gentle blush of dawn, the majestic glow of evening twilight, the enchanting beauty of deserts, the foggy distance of fields and meadows, and you, the mirror waters of lakes, since ancient times reflecting the distant azure skies , containing the whole infinity in their depths - your existence and all your beauty depend solely on that light shell that extends over the globe. Without her, none of these paintings, none of these lush colors would exist. Instead of an azure blue sky, you would be surrounded by endless black space; instead of majestic sunrises and sunsets, days would abruptly, without transitions, give way to nights and nights to days. Instead of the gentle half-light that reigns everywhere where the dazzling rays of the Sun do not directly fall, there would be bright light only in places directly illuminated by the daylight, and in all the rest there would be thick shadow.”

Earth in the sky of the moon

The second attraction on the Moon is the huge disk of the Earth hanging in the sky. It will seem strange to the traveler that the globe that was left behind when flying to the Moon at the bottom, suddenly found myself here up.

There is no one top and bottom in the universe for all the worlds, and it should not surprise you that, if you left the Earth below, you would see it above while on the Moon.

The disk of the Earth hanging in the lunar sky is huge: its diameter is approximately four times larger than the diameter of the familiar lunar disk in the earth’s sky. This is the third amazing fact that awaits the lunar traveler. If on lunar nights our landscapes are quite well lit, then nights on the Moon, with the rays of the full Earth with a disk 14 times larger than the lunar one, should be unusually light. The brightness of a star depends not only on its diameter, but also on the reflectivity of its surface. In this respect, the earth's surface is six times larger than the moon's; therefore, the light of a full Earth should illuminate the Moon 90 times more powerfully than a full month illuminates the Earth. On “earthly nights” on the Moon it would be possible to read fine print. The illumination of the lunar soil by the Earth is so bright that it allows us, from a distance of 400,000 km, to distinguish the night part of the lunar globe in the form of a vague flickering inside a narrow crescent; it is called the “ash light” of the Moon. Imagine 90 full moons pouring their light from the sky, and also take into account the absence of an atmosphere on our satellite that absorbs part of the light, and you will get some idea of ​​​​the enchanting picture of lunar landscapes, flooded in the middle of the night with the radiance of the full Earth.

Could a lunar observer be able to discern the outlines of continents and oceans on the Earth's disk? It is a common misconception that the Earth in the Moon's sky represents something similar to a school globe. This is how artists depict it when they have to draw the globe in world space: with the contours of the continents, with a snow cap in the polar regions, and other details. All this must be attributed to the realm of fantasy. On the globe, when observed from the outside, such details cannot be distinguished. Not to mention the clouds, which usually cover half of the earth's surface, our atmosphere itself strongly scatters the sun's rays; therefore the Earth should appear as bright and as opaque to the eye as Venus. Pulkovo astronomer G. A. Tikhov, who studied this issue, wrote:

“Looking at the Earth from space, we would see a disk the color of a very whitish sky and would hardly discern any details of the surface itself. A significant portion of the sunlight falling on the Earth manages to be scattered in space by the atmosphere and all its impurities before it reaches the surface of the Earth itself. And what is reflected by the surface itself will again have time to weaken greatly due to new scattering in the atmosphere.”

So, while the Moon clearly shows us all the details of its surface, the Earth hides its face from the Moon, and indeed from the entire universe, under a shining blanket of the atmosphere.

But this is not the only difference between the lunar night luminary and the earthly one. In our sky, the month rises and sets, describing its path along with the star dome. In the lunar sky, the Earth does not make such a movement. She does not rise or set there, does not take part in the orderly, extremely slow procession of the stars. It hangs almost motionless in the sky, occupying a certain position for each point of the Moon, while the stars slowly sliding behind her. This is a consequence of the feature of lunar motion that we have already considered, which is that the Moon always faces the Earth with the same part of its surface. For a lunar observer, the Earth hangs almost motionless in the vault of heaven. If the Earth stands at the zenith of some lunar crater, then it never leaves its zenith position. If from some point it is visible on the horizon, it forever remains on the horizon of that place. Only lunar librations, which we have already discussed, somewhat disturb this immobility. The starry sky makes its slow rotation behind the earth's disk, in 27 1/3 of our days, the Sun goes around the sky in 29.5 days, the planets make similar movements, and only the Earth rests almost motionless in the black sky.

But, remaining in one place, the Earth quickly, every 24 hours, rotates around its axis, and if our atmosphere were transparent, the Earth could serve as the most convenient celestial clock for future passengers of interplanetary spacecraft. In addition, the Earth has the same phases as the Moon shows in our sky. This means that our world does not always shine in the lunar sky as a full disk: it appears sometimes in the form of a semicircle, sometimes in the form of a sickle, more or less narrow, sometimes in the form of an incomplete circle, depending on what part of the half of the Earth illuminated by the Sun is facing the Moon. By drawing the relative positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon, you can easily see what the Earth and Moon should show to each other opposite phases.

When we observe a new moon, a lunar observer should see the full disk of the Earth - a “full Earth”; on the contrary, when we have a full moon, there is “new earth” on the moon (Fig. 50). When we see the narrow crescent of the new month, from the Moon we could admire the Earth in its demise, and the full disk is missing just such a crescent as the Moon shows us at that moment. However, the phases of the Earth are not as sharply defined as the lunar ones: the Earth’s atmosphere blurs the boundary of light, creating that gradual transition from day to night and back, which we observe on Earth in the form of twilight.

Rice. 50.

Another difference between the earth's phases and the lunar phases is as follows. On Earth, we never see the Moon at the very moment of the new moon. Although it usually stands above or below the Sun (sometimes by 5°, i.e. 10 of its diameters), so that the narrow edge of the lunar globe illuminated by the Sun could be visible, it is still inaccessible to our vision: the brilliance of the Sun beats out the modest radiance of the silver thread of the new moon. We usually notice the new Moon only at the age of two days, when it has time to move a sufficient distance from the Sun, and only in rare cases (in spring) - at the age of one day. This is not the case when observing the “new earth” from the Moon: there is no atmosphere there, scattering a shining halo around the daylight. Stars and planets are not lost there in the rays of the Sun, but clearly stand out in the sky in the immediate vicinity of it. Therefore, when the Earth is not directly in front of the Sun (i.e., not during eclipses), but slightly above or below it, it is always visible in the black, star-studded sky of our satellite in the shape of a thin sickle with horns facing away from the Sun (Fig. 51). As it moves away from the Earth to the left of the Sun, the sickle seems to roll to the right.

Rice. 51.

sickle - Sun

A phenomenon corresponding to the one just described can be seen by observing the Moon through a small telescope: on a full moon, the disk of the night star is not seen by us in the form of a complete circle; since the centers of the Moon and the Sun do not lie on the same straight line with the observer’s eye, the lunar disk lacks a narrow crescent, which slides as a dark strip near the edge of the illuminated disk to the left as the Moon moves to the right. But the Earth and Moon always show opposite phases to each other; therefore, at the moment described, the lunar observer should have seen a thin crescent of “new earth”.

We have already noticed in passing that the librations of the Moon should affect the fact that the Earth is not completely motionless in the lunar sky; it fluctuates around its average position in the north-south direction by 14°, and in the west-east by 16°. For those points of the Moon where the Earth is visible on the very horizon, our planet should therefore sometimes appear to be setting and soon then rising again, describing strange curves (Fig. 52). This kind of sunrise or sunset of the Earth in one place on the horizon, without going around the entire sky, can last many Earth days.

Rice. 52.

Eclipses on the Moon

Let us supplement the picture of the lunar sky sketched now with a description of those celestial spectacles called eclipses. There are two types of eclipses on the Moon: solar and “terrestrial”. The first are not similar to the solar eclipses we are familiar with, but are extremely spectacular in their own way. They occur on the Moon at those moments when there are lunar eclipses on Earth, since then the Earth is placed on the line connecting the centers of the Sun and the Moon. At these moments our satellite plunges into the shadow cast by the globe. Anyone who has happened to see the Moon at such moments knows that it is not completely deprived of light, does not disappear from the eye; it is usually visible in cherry-red rays penetrating inside the cone of the earth's shadow. If we were transported at this moment to the surface of the Moon and looked from there at the Earth, we would clearly understand the reason for the red illumination: in the sky of the Moon, the globe, placed in front of the bright, although much smaller Sun, appears as a black disk surrounded by a crimson border of its atmosphere. It is this border that illuminates the Moon, immersed in the shadow, with a reddish light (Fig. 53).

Rice. 53. Progress of a solar eclipse on the Moon: the Sun C gradually sets behind the earth's disk 3, hanging motionless in the moonlit sky

Solar eclipses on the Moon last not a few minutes, as on Earth, but more than 4 hours - as long as our lunar eclipses, because, in essence, these are our lunar eclipses, only observed not from the Earth, but from the Moon.

As for “earthly” eclipses, they are so insignificant that they barely deserve the name eclipses. They occur at those moments when solar eclipses are visible on Earth. On the large disk of the Earth, lunar observers would then see a small moving black circle - these are happy areas of the earth's surface from where they can admire the eclipse of the Sun.

It should be noted that eclipses such as our solar ones cannot be observed anywhere else in the planetary system. We owe this exceptional spectacle to an accidental circumstance: the Moon, blocking the Sun from us, is exactly as many times closer to us than the Sun, how many times the lunar diameter is smaller than the solar one - a coincidence that is not repeated on any other planet.

• The lunar soil is therefore not white at all, as is often thought, but rather dark. This does not contradict the fact that it shines with white light. “Sunlight reflected even from a black object remains white. If the Moon were dressed in the blackest velvet, it would still show off in the sky like a silvery disk,” writes Tyndall in his book about light. The ability of lunar soil to scatter the sun's rays illuminating it is on average the same as the scattering ability of dark volcanic rocks.

We call the sky all that space that surrounds the Earth on all sides. Wherever we are on the globe, the sky always appears to us above, that is, above our heads. The concepts “bottom” and “top” are relative. We associate the idea of ​​the bottom with the earth's surface on which we are located. The direction “down” in our terms is the direction towards the center of the Earth.

But the Moon is surrounded on all sides by cosmic space filled with celestial bodies. This means that there is “sky” on the Moon too. And on the Moon it should be “above”, and we should consider the direction to the center of the Moon to be the direction “down”.

It is easy to understand that the sky of the Moon should be sharply different from our usual sky.

First of all, of course, there is no blue firmament on the Moon and there cannot be. On Earth, the air illuminated by the Sun appears to us as a blue-blue firmament. The blue and cyan rays of sunlight reflected and scattered in it create this heavenly coloring that is familiar to us. The less air there is, the less scattered blue and blue rays of sunlight there are in it, the darker - grayer and blacker - the sky becomes.

This was observed, by the way, by our Soviet heroes who ascended on the Osoaviakhim stratospheric balloon on January 30, 1934. stratonauts - the first people to rise to a height of 22 km - vol. Fedoseenko, Vasenko and Usyskin. At the height they had reached, they saw a sky of slate-gray, black-gray color.

Meanwhile, the Moon is not surrounded by air at all. This means that the rays of the Sun are not scattered there. And, therefore, the sky on the Moon should always appear dark, black.

The second extremely interesting feature of the lunar sky is the extraordinary appearance of the Sun. On Earth, the Sun appears as a dazzlingly brilliant disk. At moments of total solar eclipses, when the Moon completely covers the unbearably bright disk of the Sun, a gently shining silver-matte radiant solar corona is visible around the Moon, which appears to be a black disk (27).

The solar corona is the outer part of the thin solar atmosphere and consists of gas particles, solid dust particles and negatively charged electrons. The corona is generally still very poorly studied, since on Earth it can only be observed during rare moments of total solar eclipses. Calculations show that scientists on Earth generally have no more than one minute per year to observe the corona; So rare are total solar eclipses that can be observed in an environment that is somewhat convenient for solving scientific problems, and they pass so quickly.

Why can’t the crown be seen at normal times, during the day, outside of eclipses? It turns out that the dazzlingly bright surface of the Sun - what is called the photosphere, that is, the luminiferous sphere of the Sun - does not make it possible to distinguish the generally weak glow of the corona. The air surrounding us is brightly illuminated by the light of the solar photosphere. Against the light background of the air, the rays of the solar corona are completely indistinguishable.

On the Moon, the solar corona should always be visible, since there is no air illuminated by the Sun there (28). How tempting this environment is for scientists seeking to penetrate the secrets of the structure of the Sun and the processes occurring in it!

How offensive it is for earthly scientists to realize that a beneficial atmosphere, without which, of course, life on Earth in modern forms could not exist, is still a huge obstacle in solving certain scientific problems!

Air is quite rightly called the “enemy of astronomers.” We're not even talking about the fact that the state of the air often makes sky observations completely impossible: for example, if it's cloudy or rainy. There is a lot of dust in the air, there is constant mixing of its various layers, different layers have different densities - all this leads to large distortions of what is observed and creates enormous interference with the accuracy and timeliness of observations.

Not the tone of the Moon: there is no air, the sky is completely clear, the solar corona is always visible; During the day, as well as at night, the stars shine brightly. It is easy to imagine that this is so, having understood the reasons for the disappearance of stars from the earth's sky at dawn: the stars cease to be distinguishable when the air is illuminated by the Sun. In the bright air, the faint light of very distant stars ceases to be visible.

An earthly inhabitant, familiar with the starry sky and transported to the Moon, would not find any difference in the relative arrangement of the stars, in the constellations, in comparison with what we observe on Earth. The distance itself is large from the Earth to the Moon.

is completely insignificant in comparison with the unimaginably huge distances to the stars. Their location relative to each other, visible from the Earth, would not change even when observing the starry sky from the Sun or from the most distant planet of our planetary world - Pluto.

But the appearance of the stars themselves would be somewhat different: their enchanting twinkle would disappear, the stars would lose their radiance, would cease to sparkle - they would all seem only like bright points. By the way, the stars appear to twinkle because the Earth is surrounded by air. The air is restless: various currents occur in it, mixing layers of different densities, which is associated with different air temperatures in different places and different humidity.

Finally, much more stars would be visible on the Moon, because in many cases the air makes it very difficult for us to see them from Earth. We would always see on the Moon those stars that on Earth can be seen only on the darkest nights when the air is in the clearest condition and which in a slightly illuminated sky - thanks, for example, to the light of the Moon, the approaching dawn, etc. - can’t be distinguished in any way.

In addition, we would see stars near the horizon. Usually on Earth, close to the horizon, visibility is extremely poor. In this direction we look through a much larger thickness of air, through those layers that are close to the surface of the Earth. These layers are less transparent both due to their increased density and due to their greater filling with dust and moisture.

So, on the Moon the sky should always be equally cloudless. There is never rainy or cloudy weather there. And in general there is no weather on the Moon: weather is, first of all, the state of the air, its greater or lesser heat, humidity, etc.

It is not difficult to understand that the Earth, observed from the Moon, must have a phase directly opposite to the lunar one at the moment: if there is a new moon on Earth, then from the Moon the entire hemisphere of the Earth illuminated by the Sun should be visible in the form of a full disk; if the Moon is visible in the first quarter, and, therefore, its convex side is turned to the west, to the right, then the Earth should have a phase of the last quarter, that is, the convex side of its illuminated part is turned to the east, to the left.

This means that, being on the Moon, we could trace the cycle of the Earth’s phases - in the same order in which the gradual change of phases of the Moon occurs. We could easily use words like “full earth” or “new earth.”

At the moment when the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon, the full Moon is visible from the Earth, because its entire half facing the Earth is illuminated by the Sun. At this time, the Earth turns its parts not illuminated by the Sun towards the Moon.

The Earth, however, does not completely disappear from the Moon’s sky at this time: the Earth’s air, illuminated by the Sun, located behind and perhaps slightly above or below the Earth, in the form of a thin light border should indicate the presence of the Earth in the Moon’s sky. Moreover, if the Earth is in the sky higher than the place where the Sun shines brightly, the lower part of the Earth’s atmospheric halo should be brighter, and vice versa. This means that even at the moment of a mathematically precise “new earth,” the Earth should not disappear from the sky of the Moon at all.

That's not enough. After all, at this time there is a full moon on Earth. This means that the side of the Earth facing the Moon is filled with rather bright light from the Moon. This illumination, undoubtedly, should make the entire Earth visible, in the form of a slightly illuminated disk. In any case, the Earth could be distinguished by blocking the Sun with something and protecting the eyes from the dazzling brilliance of the details of the lunar surface illuminated by it.

If there were air around the Moon, the generally weak glow of the Earth's atmospheric halo and moonlight on Earth would completely disappear against the light background of the sky, against the backdrop of air illuminated by the Sun.

Yes, this is how it always happens here on Earth. We cannot notice the Moon in the sky when it is in the same direction as the Sun, although its location can be indicated by astronomers with the greatest accuracy. Only if at this moment the disk of the Moon is projected directly onto the disk of the Sun, located on the continuation of the straight line connecting the Moon and the Earth, that is, when a total or partial eclipse of the Sun occurs, the Moon can be visible as a black disk or part of the disk.

Likewise, from Earth, during the day we cannot detect the presence of the dark Moon in the sky by the effect of its covering of certain stars: at this time the stars are not visible. On the Moon, even with the bright shine of the Sun, you can see how certain stars disappear behind the disk of the Earth.

The disappearance of the stars covered by the Earth should not happen immediately, of course. Due to the fact that the Earth is surrounded by air, at first the brightness of a star should only weaken when it finds itself near the faintly outlined disk of the Earth: we are now looking at it through a certain thickness of air. Getting paler, the star finally disappears behind the Earth's disk, and for quite a long time - in some cases for four hours.

When our Moon is bright, it is impossible to see the lunar occultation of stars from Earth. Thanks to the strong illumination of the Earth's atmosphere by the Moon, even bright stars fade. The sky on a moonlit night is bright, few stars are visible, and around the Moon, within a very large radius, not a single star is usually visible.

The sky of the Moon is always black, although the Earth shines brightly; therefore, the number of stars does not decrease at all and their brightness does not weaken. Consequently, from the Moon you can see the occultation of stars much more often than we have the opportunity to observe here on Earth.

This phenomenon can also be observed more often because the disk of the Earth visible from the Moon is approximately four times larger than the disk of the Moon visible from the Earth (29). This is explained by the fact that the actual diameter of the Earth is four times the diameter of the Moon, and the distance is the same.

What a huge disk our Earth should appear in the lunar sky! Whether it is seen as a crescent, or half a disk, or a full disk, it must appear huge in comparison with the Moon as seen from Earth. Consequently, much more sunlight reflected by the Earth falls on the Moon than reflected by the Moon on the Earth.

The amount of light from the Moon, and especially from the Earth, is difficult to accurately measure. However, for comparison, the available figures are more or less sufficient.

The amount of light sent by the full Moon is approximately half a million times less than sunlight: it amounts to V375 oo A° 7b*ooooo of the light of the Sun. This means that if the entire sky rising above our heads were covered with full Moons, the light they emitted would still be five times weaker than the Sun alone.

In addition, we know that the narrow crescent Moon is about a thousand times brighter, and the quarter Moon is nine times fainter than the full Moon.

The Earth in the Moon's sky should, of course, shine much brighter. The amount of its light exceeds the amount of moonlight on Earth from forty to ninety times. And from this it follows that on a “full Earth” the nights on the Moon are very light.

Even on a very bright moonlit night on Earth, we must use artificial light in order, for example, to read. Meanwhile, on the Moon, when the Earth is full, one could easily read even small print.

Anyone will say, looking at the Moon, that its light is somewhat yellowish. This is explained, firstly, by the fact that the light of our Sun is also somewhat yellowish, and secondly, as will be discussed in detail later, the soil of the Moon itself has a brownish tint. Studies of the moon's light through special filters and photographs also show that the moon's light is yellowish. As for the light of the Earth, it should have a pleasant bluish tint. This shade is acquired because some of the red and orange rays of sunlight are absorbed by the earth's atmosphere, while mainly blue and blue rays are reflected.

The brightness of Earth's light is not only due to the Earth's large size: clouds and snow-covered areas help it reflect light strongly. In addition, air, light sand, mature crops or yellowed grass also reflect light more than the surface of the Moon.

It turns out that in general the Earth is capable of reflecting sunlight more strongly than the Moon, about seven times: while the Moon reflects only about seven percent of the sun's rays falling on it, and absorbs the rest, the Earth reflects 45-46%.

We can easily imagine the strength of the Earth's light when it illuminates the Moon by observing the phenomenon of the so-called ashen light on the Moon.

Sometimes you can see that next to the narrow crescent of the “young” or waning Moon, the rest of the lunar disk appears in much weaker light (30). Leonardo da Vinci has the following figurative note about this: “The old Moon is in the arms of the new moon.” This gentle light was compared to the light emitted by a burned out but still smoldering fire, the coals of which were already covered with light ash (hence the name “ash light”).

This is the light of the Earth illuminating the Moon at this moment. If it were not for the earth's air, we, as already said, would see this light on the Moon and at the time of the new moon. But the air makes it difficult to see parts of the Moon dimly illuminated by the Earth. Only when the crescent moon is high above the horizon, and the air is clean and transparent, is the ashen light of the moon visible. These conditions are most favorable in early spring.

It has been observed that the intensity of the ashen light increases and decreases depending on which hemisphere of the Earth sends its light to the Moon. This is explained by the different reflectivity of continents and oceans. But land and seas on Earth are far from evenly distributed.

Thanks to the daily rotation, the Earth turns to the Moon with its different sides; therefore, we see the movement of the Moon along with the entire starry sky from east to west. On Earth we also notice the actual movement among the stars of the Moon moving around the Earth. What would we observe on the Moon?

We would see that the Earth, day by day and hour by hour, changes its position among the stars. It would seem to us that the starry sky is slowly floating to the side; At the same time, some stars would set, others would rise to replace them.

But relative to the lunar horizon, the Earth would remain in one place. The Earth has no diurnal movement, that is, regular rising and setting, in the sky of the Moon, because the Moon always faces the Earth with the same side.

Consequently, depending on our location on the Moon, and only in one of its hemispheres, we would always see the Earth at the same point in the sky: either at the zenith, or, say, low above the horizon. And this position of the Earth would hardly change.

We say almost, meaning libration. Due to libration, that is, some swaying of the Moon in different directions, the Earth would slowly shift in different directions, also seeming to sway in the sky.

Extremely interesting pictures would be seen by those who would occupy observation posts close to the boundaries of the surface of the Moon facing the Earth. Due to libration in some of these places, the Earth sometimes rises just a little from the horizon and then disappears again.

For lunar observers, the mystery of the Earth's wobble in the sky and the apparent movement of the stars relative to the almost motionless Earth would be extremely difficult. To some "lunar"

It would have been much more difficult for Copernicus to unravel what was really happening with the celestial bodies.

Is it possible to notice the Earth's daily rotation from the Moon? Of course it is possible, but it is very unclear.

Turning to this issue, we will note one mistake that is often made when drawing the Earth in the sky of the Moon. In this case, on the disk of the Earth it is customary to depict the features of any terrestrial globe, that is, the outlines of continents, seas and oceans.

This is a completely false portrayal. The earth's atmosphere would not allow such details to be discerned with sufficient clarity on the surface of the Earth. Clouds in the form of stripes and spots should cover a significant part of the Earth's disk (up to half); Let us further recall the so-called haze, which hides the horizon and distant objects in general from us. The air seems to be very transparent. And yet, the presence of water vapor and dust in it, and mainly the property of air to scatter rays of light - all this would decisively prevent an observer on the Moon from any clearly distinguishing certain details of the Earth’s surface.

The extreme brightness of the Earth itself would greatly interfere with observation. At the edges, the Earth's disk would be completely blurred and unclear; the vast spaces occupied by clouds are not at all

would give us the opportunity to even vaguely outline the familiar outlines of the earth's continents and seas; the boundaries of the seas and land covered with forests or meadows would be completely indistinguishable. Perhaps it would be possible to discern some very unclear difference in the color of individual places on the Earth's surface - areas covered with snow would stand out with increased brightness. It is possible that in the breakthroughs of the clouds it would sometimes be possible to discern a very bright and distinct sparkle on the Earth’s disk - the reflection of the Sun on the surface of the sea - if, however, the sea were completely calm at that moment and in this place; The sun would be noticeably reflected from the oceans and seas with a fluctuating brilliance.

If in the next few days in the morning, after sunrise, you look carefully to the west, then low above the horizon you can see the pale disk of the waning Moon.

On July 16, our satellite passed the full moon phase (also happened on this day). During a full moon, the Moon is known to be always in the opposite part of the sky from the Sun, that is, it appears in the sky at sunset and sets below the horizon at sunrise. Now, continuing to move east, the Moon approaches our daylight from the right side. Rising later and later, The moon gradually moves into the morning sky. After the full moon phase, our satellite sets below the horizon later than sunrise, and therefore can be observed even against a light background.

Another thing is that spotting the Moon is not so easy on a bright summer morning! Therefore, many people far from astronomy are amazed when they suddenly “stumble upon” our satellite in the blue sky.

The moon does look strange in bright daylight. It's amazing how invisible she can be.

When we look at the full or almost full Moon at night, we often squint: it looks dazzlingly bright. (To be fair, I note that in the summer this is not so noticeable, because the full Moon is low above the horizon, where the light of celestial objects is greatly weakened. But in the fall, winter or spring it is clearly noticeable!)

The waning Moon is usually inconspicuous in the morning sky. Photo: İntikam

In the glow of the full moon at night, faint stars and foggy objects disappear from the sky. During the day, not a trace remains of the aggressive light of the satellite. You need to know where exactly to look in order to notice the very pale Moon, almost indistinguishable from the bright blue sky. And the reason is simple: The brightness of the satellite is 400,000 times less than the brightness of the Sun!

This is why the Moon is rarely seen during the day! This example, by the way, shows the amazing ability of our eyes to adapt: ​​what seems dazzlingly bright to us at night becomes dull during the day.

What will happen to our satellite in the coming days and weeks?

If you observe the waning Moon at the same time every morning (say, after sunrise), it is easy to notice that it will move to the east and at the same time be higher and higher in the sky. This is explained not only by the fact that every morning the Moon will be located further and further from the setting point, but also by the fact that She met the July full moon in the southernmost constellation of the zodiac - in Sagittarius. In fact, the Moon was in the same part of the sky where the Sun was in December. Do you remember how low in the sky our daylight was then?

The Moon behaves exactly like the Sun, which after the winter solstice begins to rise higher and higher in the sky, until the summer solstice. But the path that the Sun travels against the background of stars in six months, the Moon completes in just two weeks.

On July 25, 2019, the Moon will reach its last quarter phase; it will rise after midnight and culminate at dawn. The new moon will occur on August 1st. At this time, the Moon will disappear from the sky, close to the Sun, giving us a delightfully dark sky to view the Delta Aquarid meteor shower. When the time of the Perseids comes, the Moon will already shine quite brightly again.

Moonrise in the light of the sun on July 13, 2019. Here the phase of the Moon is close to the full moon, but against the bright blue sky it is not very noticeable. Photo.

To better understand why the sky on many planets, including the Moon, is black, it is necessary to understand what the color palette is and how human vision determines it.

The content of the article:

Human vision recognizes only those waves of light that can be reflected from various objects. The brain perceives a certain color through signals coming from the eye lenses, which capture refracted light rays.

The color perceived by human vision also depends on the reflective, refracted rays that fall on objects and are refracted in the same way. For example, you can consider a red object that is clearly visible in daylight, but if the light beam carries a violet tint, this does not mean that the eye will perceive this color as well. To perceive a particular color, several conditions are necessary:

– Light photons or waves must be reflected from the surface of the object. When a substance or object absorbs a light beam, the object will be perceived as black.

– In order for the eye to determine the colors and range of shades, it must catch a wave that corresponds to its perception and the memory bank stored in the brain center.

Why is the sky on the moon black

Considering the situation with the Moon, we can say that to determine the color, one of the important factors is missing in its location - the atmosphere. Only a certain substance or medium is capable of capturing, delaying or repelling light rays. As for the atmosphere, its structure acts as a transmitter of light energy, and around the Moon there is only empty space, so the rays of the sun are not able to be refracted and reflected. They simply dissipate into empty space. Waves of light are reflected from the surface of the moon, but not from the atmosphere, since there is none. The atmosphere is a kind of colorant of the sky. People can observe the color of the Moon precisely because the light reflected from its surface reaches the Earth. From such a distance, the person was able to see its outline.

The black sky of the Moon is due to the lack of atmosphere.

Why is the sky blue from the Earth but black from the Moon?

It is interesting that the color of the sky may be a different color, and not the same color as you are used to observing it. The nature of its color scheme depends on the composition of the atmosphere and the variety of chemical elements in its structure. The sky on Earth is blue only because the sun's rays, reflected from the surface of the atmosphere, after passing through all its layers, are perceived by the eye as a blue spectrum. If the atmosphere had a slightly different chemical composition or the Sun sent rays that were not white, then the sky would have a completely unusual appearance.