See What the Moon Will Look Like in All of 2014 in Just 5 Minutes

By Nancy Atkinson - December 9, 2013 at 4:12 PM UTC | Planetary Science
moon.0121.jpg

Here's how the Moon will look to us on Earth during the entire year of 2014. Using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio can project how the Moon will appear, and compresses one month into 24 seconds and a year to about 5 minutes. Above is the video where Celestial north is up, corresponding to the view from the northern hemisphere, and below is how the Moon will look from the southern hemisphere.

While the Moon always keeps the same face to us, it's not

exactly

the same face. Because of the tilt in its axis and shape of its orbit, we see the Moon from slightly different angles over the course of a month, and the year. Normally, we don't see how the Moon "wobbles" in its orbit, but seeing the Moon's year this quickly, we can see the changes in libration, and axis tilt — as well as the most noticeable changes, the Moon's phases.

Find out more

at this SVS page,

where you can also "Dial a Moon" -- put in a specific date and see how the Moon will look on that day.

Universe Today also has a great app for your

iPhone

or

Android

that can also show you how the Moon will look any day in the past or present.

We also have a full list of the Moon phases and full Moon/New Moon dates here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com