Hadhramout Moon Phase - Day Eleven Of Ramadhan

Hadhramout - Day Eleven Of Ramadhan

To any one on Earth, the moon is beautiful and awesome. It symboliizes love, peace and romance. Whoever watches or gazes at the moon, can not help but feel calmed by it. Since time immemorial, when Man first walked the Earth - the moon has been the same; going through the same phases. Every time. Every Lunar year. And yet, very few people know facts about Earth's nearest Cosmic neighbor; and the second brightest object, above, in the sky, after the sun.

Hadhramaut - Day Eleven Of Ramadan

As the moon orbits Earth and goes through its phases, it spends part of its time between us and the Sun, and the lighted half faces away from us. This is called a new moon. And as the moon swings around on its orbit, a thin sliver of reflected sunlight is seen on Earth as a crescent moon. Once the Moon is opposite the Sun, it becomes fully lit from our view. It becomes a full moon as it is almost becoming now.

The moon is not geologically very active: earthquakes, volcanoes and mountain-building don't destroy the landscape as they do on Earth; and with virtually no atmosphere - there is no wind or rain, so very little surface erosion occurs. And that's why we see the same crater like surface and features on, always - without any change at all.

The moon is not round (or spherical). Instead, it's shaped like an egg. It gets its light from the sun and reflects it: "Do you not consider how Allah has created seven heavens in layers; And made the moon therein a [reflected] light and made the sun a burning lamp?" ~ Surat Nūĥ - 71:15-16.

The moon is bigger than Pluto. And is about one-fourth the diameter of Earth. Tides on Earth are caused mostly by the moon, with the Sun having a lesser effect. The asymmetric nature of the moon's gravitational interaction is also responsible for the fact that the moon rotates synchronously - it is locked in phase with its orbit so that the same side is always facing toward the Earth.

The Moon takes about 27 days (27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 11.6 seconds) to go all the way around the Earth and return to its starting position. A lunar month is the time the moon takes to pass through a complete cycle of its phases and is measured from New Moon to New Moon. A lunar month is about 29.5 days (29 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, 11.6 seconds). Whilst the Moon is orbiting the Earth, the Earth is constantly moving because it is orbiting the sun. It therefore travels slightly more than 360° to get from one new moon to the next. Thus the lunar month is longer. Looking down from the north pole we would see the Moon orbiting counterclockwise from west to east. The moon moves toward the east in our sky by about 12 degrees each day.

The moon rises in the east and sets in the west. It is about 250,000 miles (384,400 kilometers) from Earth. The moon orbits Earth at an average speed of 2,288 miles per hour (3,683 kilometers per hour). It travels at different speeds during different parts of its orbit. It moves slowest when it is at furthest distance from Earth. It moves fastest in its orbit when it is closest to Earth and it travels a distance of 1,423,000 miles (2,290,000 kilometers) around the Earth. The Moon has a diameter of 2,000 miles ( 3,476 kilometers).

The surface of the Moon has about the same area as the continent of Africa. The surface of the moon has many things on it such as craters, lava plains, mountains, and valleys. Scientists believe the craters were formed around 3.5 to 4.5 billion years ago by meteors hitting the moon's surface.

For more amazing facts about the Moon - see below:

+ Earth's Moon: Facts & Figures
+ Moon Facts for Kids
+ Is the Moon a Planet?
+ More facts