Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, February 7th.  The sun will rise at 7:54.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 4 minutes, setting at 5:59.   The moon, at full today, will rise at 6:11 this evening.

What is the dark side of the moon?  If you said it was the part of the moon we don’t see, you are right, but only for today only.  The proper name for the part of the moon that doesn’t face the earth is the far side.  Every part of the moon has a chance to be on the dark side, which is just the night side, just as any solar system body illuminated by the sun has a day side and a night or dark side.  The reason we can see only one side of the moon from the earth is that it’s tidally locked to the earth.  The moon is trying to do the same to the earth and is slowing the earth’s rotation down.  This is shown by the occasional leap second that’s added to our time.  The moon does rotate, but it rotates once as it revolves about the earth once.

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