Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Tuesday, July 5th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 9:30.   The moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 11:49 this evening.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:04.

As we look at the moon tonight we can see dark areas and bright areas.  To western philosophers and astronomers from Aristotle to Copernicus objects in the heavens were thought to be perfect and changeless and moved in uniform circular motion around the earth.   However the moon doesn’t appear perfect and spotless.  It has light and dark areas on it.  The supposed explanation for that was that it was a perfect mirror and reflected the earth.  It might make sense if you didn’t think about it too much.   For a very long time nobody did, at least nobody that made a difference until Copernicus came along.  With Copernicus, Galileo and his telescope, Tycho Brahe’s observations, Kepler and Newton, the heavens were  changed forever.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.