Dec 18, 2024 23:00:00

An interactive guide that lets you learn more about the Earth's satellite, the Moon, by moving it around from various perspectives.

Interactive artist Bartosz Ciechanowski offers a site that allows visitors to learn about various scientific phenomena through interactive, hand-held manipulation. In 'Moon,' which explains the movement of the moon around the earth, you can move sliders to see the date, time, and what the moon looks like from a certain position on Earth.

Moon – Bartosz Ciechanowski

https://ciechanow.ski/moon/

The image below shows the Moon illuminated by the light of the Sun as seen from space. The current time is written in the upper right corner: '2024/12/18 17:10.'

You can move the moon around by dragging and dropping the surface of the moon.

You can also move the slider under the moon to change the date and time by up to a month and see the phases of the moon change accordingly. Ciechanowski's webpage 'Moon' offers over 100 interactive explanations that let you learn about the movement and appearance of the moon by following animations and manipulating it at your fingertips.

For example, below is a chart showing where the moon will be in the sky from a point on Earth, with the blue slider showing the date and the yellow slider showing the time.

Moving the slider will change the look of your sky, as shown below: The white arrow indicates the direction the moon will be in at this time.

In addition, you can drag and drop the red doll on the globe to set 'from which point on the Earth you are looking up at the sky.'

If you click the button at the bottom right of the globe and select 'Allow only when accessing the site' in your browser to allow location information to be obtained, the coordinates on the globe will change to your current location, and you will also be able to see how the moon looks from your current location.

In addition to seeing how the moon looks from Earth, you can also see simulations of the movements of planets and moons. Below is an animation showing how planets with two different speeds and masses move when attracted to each other by gravity. Here, you can observe how the movements of planets with any speed and mass interfere with each other by setting the length and direction of the arrows and the mass of the planets.

'The Moon may be just Earth's neighbor in the sky, but its presence influences our lives in many subtle ways. When it reflects sunlight to illuminate the dark of night, when it raises the tides to bring life to the oceans, or when it covers the Sun during a total solar eclipse, the Moon reminds us that just outside the safe boundaries of Earth lies a universe beyond our control,' says Ciechanowski. 'By learning more about the fascinating and mysterious nature of the Moon through the simulation, the next time you see it shining in the night sky, you'll see it a little differently, not as a mundane presence in the sky, but as a companion that gently influences our own existence.'