“One evening, after thinking it over for some time, Harold decided to go for a walk in the moonlight. There wasn’t any moon, and Harold needed a moon for a walk in the moonlight.” – from Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.
Our wonderful Moon dances around in the sky, changing shape and position every day, though, of course, we mostly notice it at night. Waxing and waning, moving from new to full and back to new, the Moon orbits the Earth and together we orbit the Sun. Those phases of the Moon repeat their pattern about every 28 days.
Exactly where we see the Moon each evening is often a surprise. The change in the position reflects the fact that the Earth’s rotational axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees relative to the plane in which we orbit the Sun. Plus, the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is also tilted about 5 degrees relative to the plane of the Earth’s orbit. This means that moonrise location varies by roughly 57 degrees on the horizon over the course of a month!
Why not take a few minutes every evening for the next 4 weeks to step outside to greet the Moon? You might even keep a moon journal for a month, drawing how the Moon appears each night and noting the time of your observation. (Children might like opening up an Oreo cookie and carving the phase of the moon out of frosting by scraping it with their teeth.)
And this week, the night sky holds a special delight early early in the morning of March 14th – a total lunar eclipse! Look for this “blood moon” at about 3:00 a.m. For more information, check out this video courtesy of NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. Here’s hoping for clear skies for the show!