Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, May 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 15 minutes, setting at 9:18, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:01. The Moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 2:25 tomorrow morning.

Tonight’s Moon is a fat crescent. The lower or southern part of the Moon are brighter. These are the lunar highlands, the more rugged crater filled part of the Moon. The darker areas are the so-called lunar seas, huge lava filled craters. Note that they appear to be roughly circular. They are thought to be the result of large asteroid impacts that occurred four billion years ago during what is known as the late heavy bombardment. The late heavy bombardment is still controversial. One theory has that the outer planets changed their orbits in time disrupting the two areas of small bodies, the asteroid belt inside Jupiter’s orbit and the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune, sending some of them into the inner solar system.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The Moon at low magnification this evening, May 28, 2020 with the English names for the visible lunar seas. Created using Stellarium.