The 5 degree tilt of the Moon’s orbit also causes it to appear to nod, as though it were saying “yes.” The tilt sometimes brings the Moon above Earth’s northern hemisphere, and sometimes below Earth’s southern hemisphere, allowing us to see slightly more of the northern or southern hemispheres of the Moon. We call this motion “libration in latitude.” Philippe de Montebello in Sabine Rewald. Caspar David Friedrich: Moonwatchers. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, p. 6.

Main articles: Tidal force, Tidal acceleration, Tide, and Theory of tides Simplified diagram of the Moon's gravity tidal effect on the Earth On the evenings of December 14 and 15, 2023, the thin waxing crescent moon will float low in the sunset direction in the midst of bright twilight. Look shortly after sunset. Binoculars will help spot tiny Mercury close to the moon on December 14. Also, look for earthshine, a glow on the unlit side of the moon. It’s reflected light from the Earth. Mercury had its greatest evening elongation– when it was farthest from the sun in our evening sky – on December 4, 2023. Chart via EarthSky. December 16: Moon reaches perigee November 27 and 28, 2023, the bright waning gibbous moon will lie near a trio of bright stars. It’ll be near the fiery orange star Aldebaran of Taurus the Bull and Orion’s mighty red supergiant star Betelgeuse. The bright golden star is Capella of the constellation Auriga the Charioteer. You can follow them until sunrise. Chart via EarthSky. The moon will reach apogee– its farthest distance from Earth in its elliptical orbit around the Earth – at 19 UTC (1 p.m. CST) on December 4, 2023, when it’s 251,248 miles (404,346 kilometers) away. December 5: Last quarter moon On the evenings of December 21 and 22, 2023, the waxing gibbous moon will glow near the bright planet Jupiter. The moon and Jupiter will set several hours after midnight. Chart via EarthSky. December solstice: December 21-22On Earth, our view of the illuminated part of the Moon changes each night, depending on where the Moon is in its orbit, or path, around Earth. When we have a full view of the completely illuminated side of the Moon, that phase is known as a full moon. Scientists have experimented with modelling the impact, changing the size of Theia to test what happens at different sizes and impact angles, trying to get the nearest possible match. The Moon is a differentiated body that was initially in hydrostatic equilibrium but has since departed from this condition. [71] It has a geochemically distinct crust, mantle, and core. The Moon has a solid iron-rich inner core with a radius possibly as small as 240 kilometres (150mi) and a fluid outer core primarily made of liquid iron with a radius of roughly 300 kilometres (190mi). Around the core is a partially molten boundary layer with a radius of about 500 kilometres (310mi). [72] [73] This structure is thought to have developed through the fractional crystallization of a global magma ocean shortly after the Moon's formation 4.5billion years ago. [74] For viewers in the Northern Hemisphere, Mercury lies just above the horizon in the bright twilight shortly after sunset in the second half of November. It’ll reach its greatest evening elongation on December 4, 2023. At best, Mercury reaches 20 degrees from the sun in late November, so it will be challenging to find in bright twilight from the Northern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere will have a better view, but it’s still not its best apparition for the year. Chart via EarthSky. Where’s Mars? Gary Tinterow and Sabine Rewald in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1999–2000." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 58 (Fall 2000), p. 36, ill. (color), call it the second of three works on this theme and note that in this version Friedrich is thought to have painted it in remembrance of his favorite student, August Heinrich, who had died recently; remark that the images of the fir, gnarled oak, and rising moon are subject to interpretation.

Waxing Gibbous: The waxing gibbous phase is between a half moon and full moon. Waxing means it is getting bigger. Golden Saturn will shine in the south after sunset during November. It will be near the dim Water Jar asterism of the constellation of Aquarius the Water Bearer. Our solar system’s beautiful ringed planet will be well placed for observation this month and will shine at 0.7 magnitude for most of the month. The waxing gibbous moon will visit Saturn on the evenings of November 20, 2023. Saturn will set after midnight at the beginning of the month and before midnight at month’s end. Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky. Late November evenings: Mercury On the morning of December 1, 2023, the waning gibbous moon will be near Castor and Pollux, the twin stars of Gemini. Also nearby will be the bright star Procyon in Canis Minor the Lesser Dog. They’ll rise late in the evening the night before and be high in the morning sky. Chart via EarthSky. December 2 morning: Moon near the Beehive On the morning of December 8, 2023, the waning crescent moon will float near the bright star Spica. They’ll make a captivating pair. Then on the morning of December 9, 2023, don’t miss the spectacular pairing of the thin waning crescent moon with the dazzling planet Venus. On both mornings, the unlit portion of the moon will exhibit the lovely glow of earthshine, which is reflected light from Earth. Chart via EarthSky.The cumulative effects of stress built up by these tidal forces produces moonquakes. Moonquakes are much less common and weaker than are earthquakes, although moonquakes can last for up to an hour– significantly longer than terrestrial quakes– because of scattering of the seismic vibrations in the dry fragmented upper crust. The existence of moonquakes was an unexpected discovery from seismometers placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972. [173] Sabine Rewald in The Wrightsman Pictures. Ed. Everett Fahy. New York, 2005, pp. 342–45, no. 96, ill. (color). During this massive collision, nearly all of Earth and Theia melted and reformed as one body, with a small part of the new mass spinning off to become the Moon as we know it. Thank you to all who submit images to EarthSky Community Photos! View community photos here. We love you all. Submit your photo here. Our charts are mostly set for the northern half of Earth. To see a precise view – and time – from your location, try Stellarium Online. Planets in November 2023 November mornings: Venus

Another simple way to create an out of this world dessert table is to use premade Wilton Royal Galaxy decorations. They’re great little cupcake toppers that give your cupcakes style without too much effort. Cupcakes with Wilton Royal Galaxy Decorations Two The Moon Gifts – Toys & Book Ideas: Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald, a small town on the Baltic Sea. After studying at the Copenhagen Art Academy, in 1798 he settled in Dresden, then a center of the German Romantic movement. From the beginning of his career, Friedrich favored the subject of landscape, drawing his motifs mainly from two regions in Germany: the mountains of the Riesengebirge and of Bohemia as well as the northern Baltic coast and the island of Rügen. Friedrich began to paint in oils on canvas in 1807. Although he earned professional success, including royal patronage, his meditative, often barren landscapes, rich in spiritual associations, challenged and perplexed many of his contemporaries. Indeed, during the 1820s his pictures began to lose favor with a public who preferred the faithfully rendered scenes of the younger generation of artists of the Düsseldorf School. Friedrich died in poverty and near obscurity in Dresden. (See Börsch-Supan and Jähnig 1973, pp. 11–12, and Werner Hofmann, ed., Caspar David Friedrich, 1774–1840: Kunst um 1800, exh. cat., Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1974, pp. 83–88.) With time, however, he came to be recognized as one of the most important figures of German Romanticism and as a guiding light to fellow artists, most notably the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857). When decorating for a Two The Moon party there are so many adorable ideas you can use, that don’t cost an arm and a leg, for your big celebration. The best part of my party decorations for this special occasion is the fact that we were able to use things we already had around the house like toys such as an outer space felt sheet activity. Studies of Two Trees, April 25, 1809. Pencil, 12 1⁄2 × 10 1⁄8 in. (31.7 × 25.7 cm). Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.The main features visible from Earth by the naked eye are dark and relatively featureless lunar plains called maria (singular mare; Latin for "seas", as they were once believed to be filled with water) [119] are vast solidified pools of ancient basaltic lava. Although similar to terrestrial basalts, lunar basalts have more iron and no minerals altered by water. [120] The majority of these lava deposits erupted or flowed into the depressions associated with impact basins. Several geologic provinces containing shield volcanoes and volcanic domes are found within the near side "maria". [121] The impact would have released enough energy to liquefy both the ejecta and the Earth's crust, forming a magma ocean. The liquefied ejecta could have then re-accreted into the Earth–Moon system. [54] [55] The newly formed Moon would have had its own lunar magma ocean; its depth is estimated from about 500km (300 miles) to 1,737km (1,079 miles). [54] The instant of last quarter moon will fall at 5:49 UTC on December 5, 2023 (11:49 p.m. CST December 4). It’ll rise around midnight your local time the night before and set about 1 p.m. on December 5. December 8 and 9 mornings: Moon near Venus and Spica

Kasper Monrad in Sabine Rewald. Caspar David Friedrich: Moonwatchers. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, pp. 23, 27. On 1 November 2023, scientists reported that, according to computer simulations, remnants of a protoplanet, named Theia, could be inside the Earth, left over from a collision with the Earth in ancient times, and afterwards becoming the Moon. [59] [60] Natural development Artist's depiction of the Moon as it might have appeared in Earth's sky after the Late Heavy Bombardment around 4 billion years ago, when its orbit was half as close to Earth and it appeared 2.8 times larger than today. [61] The English adjective pertaining to the Moon is "lunar", derived from the Latin word for the Moon, lūna. Selenian / s ə l iː n i ə n/ [28] is an adjective used to describe the Moon as a world, rather than as a celestial object, [29] but its use is rare. It is derived from σελήνη selēnē, the Greek word for the Moon, and its cognate selenic was originally a rare synonym [30] but now nearly always refers to the chemical element selenium. [31] The element name selenium and the prefix seleno- (as in selenography, the study of the physical features of the Moon) come from this Greek word. [32] [33] Both men’s attire—the beret and cape of the figure on the right and the cap and coat of the one on the left—conform to the Old German dress code that had been adopted in 1815 by radical German students. These students opposed the ultraconservative policies being enforced in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. The staunchly patriotic Friedrich deliberately ignored the 1819 royal degree that forbade this dress, seen as a type of “demagogues’ uniform,” and continued to show his figures in Old German costume until his death.

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The Moon is in geophysical terms a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. It has a mass that amounts to 1.2% of Earth's, and a diameter that is roughly one-quarter of Earth's or with 3,474km (2,159mi) about as wide as Australia. [17] Within the Solar System it is the most massive and largest satellite in relation to its parent planet, the fifth most massive and largest moon overall, and more massive and larger than all known dwarf planets. [18] Its surface gravity is about one sixth of Earth's, about half of that of Mars, and after Jupiter's moon Io the second highest among all Solar System moons. The body of the Moon is differentiated and terrestrial, with no significant hydrosphere, atmosphere, or magnetic field. It formed 4.51billion years ago, not long after Earth's formation, out of the debris from a giant impact between Earth and a hypothesized Mars-sized body called Theia. So many spectacular details fill up this galactic event, but here are a choice few that I have point out: Johan Christian Dahl. Letter to Dresden Gëmaldegalerie. September 26, 1840 [published in Christie's sale cat., October 7, 1999, p. 19], remarks that Friedrich made several copies of the Dresden picture.