Understanding Lunar and Planetary Phases

New Moon

Waxing Crescent

First Quarter

Waxing Gibbous

Full Moon

Waning Gibbous

Third Quarter

Waning Crescent

 

 

 

 

PART 1

During a solar eclipse, the Moon must be in the New Moon phase.

During a lunar eclipse, the Moon must be in the Full Moon phase.

PART 2

Figure 1

 

If the Moon is in its 1^st quarter phase, it should rise at noon.

If the Moon is full, it should rise at 6pm.

The Moon would be on one one’s meridian at 6am if the phase is 3^rd quarter.

If the Moon is in the 1^st quarter phase, it should set at midnight.

The moon would be on the meridian at noon if the phase was new.

If the moon is setting in the west, it is 6am.

PART 3

Figure 2
 

When examining the rotation of the Moon during part 3 of the lab, I discovered that viewing the Moon from a single perspective while rotating it held the greatest representation of the perspective relationship between the Sun and the Moon. The Moon’s motion around the Earth can easily be compared tying a block to a rope and spinning it while observing a face or point of the block from the center of its spin. From that perspective, one would observe that while spinning the block the point or face that would face the center would not change in perspective; in this same way, the Moon does only has one “face” looking towards Earth. From Earth’s point of view, the dark side of the Moon is not always the same as the hidden side. From the Earth’s perspective the hidden side of the moon is that which is never seen from the perspective of Earth’s land, while any portion of the moon can be dark; this allows for the Earth perspective to see both phases of full and new Moons.

PART 4

Lunar, Superior Planetary and Inferior Planetary Phases

Inferior and superior planets do not share all of the same phases, inferior planets experience all of the phases from: new, full, quarter, crescent, to gibbous; whereas superior planets only display full or gibbous. Superior planets would always be at their brightest during their full phases, because those perspectives show no dark portion of the planet; even though the darkest of the superior planets that is viewable is the gibbous phase.

PART 5

Because the sun rises toward the east and north would be at the front of the paper, east would be to the right of the page meaning that the sun is in an accurate position regarding the cardinal directions. The reason Figure 1 suggests that a lunar and solar eclipse would occur every time the moon completes an orbit because it does not account for the positions of the Moon, Sun, and Earth in three dimensional space since they are not perfectly aligned on a single plane. If a spaceship were to follow along Earth’s orbit without actually orbiting Earth it would not see only one side of the moon, as in this case it would not suffer from a superiority effect since the space ship would be outside the orbit of the Earth at a stagnant displacement. If Venus can only be viewed in Positions 1, 2, and 8 on figure 2 then it could never be seen in a quarter phase or a new phase suggesting that it would be a superior planet. Superior planets can always be seen at midnight because they are always either full or gibbous. The inferior planets would include Mercury and Venus. While Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are Superior planets.

 

From this Lab I learned the difference between waning and waxing, the phases of superior and inferior planets, and how to identify the phases of the Moon. The point of this lab was to understand the phases of the planets and the moon from Earth's perspective, as well as understanding how scientists debunked the geocentric universe theory without having to actually be in space.