No
two full Moons are exactly alike. To prove it,
Laurent Laveder
spent the last two years taking pictures of every
full Moon over his home in France, and here is the result:
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The
Moon rocks and rolls, shrinks and swells, never presenting
precisely the same face twice. "In the full-sized
animation, you'll see 2 years condensed in only 2 seconds!"
says Laveder. "Sorry for the mal de mer."
Wait a minute. Didn't they teach us in school that the same
side of the Moon always faces Earth? Yes, but that's only
approximately true. Because the Moon's
orbit is slightly elliptical (5%) and slightly tilted
(5°), we view each month's full Moon from a slightly different
distance and angle. The rocking motions are called libration;
because of libration we can observe not just 50% but rather
59% of
the Moon's surface. |