Home > Ephemeris Program, The Moon > Ephemeris: 01/23/2024- The “dark” side of the Moon is its brightest side

Ephemeris: 01/23/2024- The “dark” side of the Moon is its brightest side

January 23, 2024

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, January 23rd. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 27 minutes, setting at 5:38, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:10. The Moon, 2 days before full, will set at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.

In a couple of days the far side of the Moon will become the dark side for real. It’ll be night when the near side of the moon becomes fully illuminated, the far side will be a night. The far side of the moon actually gets more sunlight than the near side of the moon because it does not suffer solar eclipses. The lunar solar eclipse occurs when we see a lunar eclipse. The Sun is blocked from shining on the Moon. The totality of a lunar solar eclipse lasts much longer than a few minutes that we get when the Moon totally blocks the Sun, the length of totality for the Moon’s solar eclipse can last several hours. The far side of the moon does not see eclipses, and when fully illuminated at what we call new moon it is a quarter of a million miles closer to the Sun than Earth.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The near side and the far side of the Moon compared
The near side and the far side of the Moon compared. On the far side the only really dark areas are the Moscow Sea at the 10 o’clock position and the crater Tsiolkovsky at the 8 o’clock position. The large semi dark area at the 5 o’clock position is the Aitken basin which would probably be a lot darker if the impact that created it had occurred on the near side of the Moon. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Credit NASA, Clementine spacecraft.
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