Tuesday, October 15, 2013

If the Moon Were at the Same Distance as the ISS

From the author:

"When the Moon eclipses the Sun, the camera exposure is adjusted so that you can see the Light of the earth reflecting back upon the moon. This was actually done by using a stand in Earth model to get reasonably accurate Earth "shine", it is Blue on the left side because the moon is flying over the Gulf of Mexico, and is white/tan on the right side because that part is over the United States . it is Dark in the middle because it is casting a huge shadow, and that shadow does not reflect light back on the Moon. I didn't quite expect it to look like this, it was a nice surprise 

At this distance the Moon would rise in the west and set in the east, The Moon Orbits the Earth counterclockwise when viewed from the North pole looking *down*. the same direction that the earth rotates. Normally the Moon orbits much slower than the earth rotates so it rises in the east and sets in the west, however at 420km it orbits much faster, faster than the earth rotates underneath, therefore it will rise in the west and set in the east

The Moon would orbit very fast, somewhere between 130 mins and 90 mins, i'll work this figure out later, it's actually a simple problem, but i'm busy!

the Moon is tidally locked in this animation, even thou it doesn't *seem* like it. The reason for this is that we are Not viewing it from the center of the earth, but rather it's surface

the 420km altitude is measured surface to surface. the center to center orbital distance is 8528km

The time in the video is sped up. the moon would transverse the sky slower.. like 10 mins (rough guess at this time)

The Moon is well within the Roche limit. at this distance the Moon would break up and form a new ring system. The Earth might also be destroyed"

Filmed in Huntsville Alabama

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

without watching it, you do realise that if the moon was that close to us we would have global tsunamis every day right