Take 5 Minutes to See What the Moon Will Do During 2013

By Nancy Atkinson - November 20, 2012 07:38 PM UTC | Planetary Science

This new video shows exactly how the Moon will look to us on Earth during the entire year of 2013. 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 or as it moves closer and farther away from Earth. But seeing the entire year compressed down to 5 minutes, we can see the changes in libration, and axis tilt — as well as the most noticeable changes, the Moon's phases.

In this new video from Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio, each frame represents one hour. In addition, as an improvement from their

previous Moon visualization

, this also shows other relevant information, including Moon orbit position, subearth and subsolar points, distance from the Earth.

At the

SVS website

, there is more information, including a

Dial-A-Moon,

where you can put in a certain date and find out how the Moon will look on a specific day.

"Thanks to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have excellent terrain maps of the Moon that can tell us the elevation at any point on the surface," said Ernie Wright, who put this new video together. "I use those maps to make the Moon sphere bumpy in all the right places. That allows the rendering software to realistically simulate all the shadows and the ragged terminator (the dividing line between day and night)."

And if you'd like to have a handy bring-along app to find out anywhere what they Moon will be doing, check out Universe Today's Phases of the Moon app, - available on

iPhone

or

Android

.

Source:

NASA

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