Vickie Smith9 age 12, of Burlington,ID for his question:
Does the sun shine on the moon?
One half of our round globe is bathed in sunlight while the other half sleeps in the shadows of night. Daylight, of course, falls upon the half of the earth which happens to be facing the sun and darkness falls upon the side which is facing away from the sun. The moon also is a globe and, like the earth, the sun shines first on one side then another side of the round ball.
Half of the round moon is always bathed in sunshine while the other half is shrouded in darkness. This corresponds to the day and night period we have on earth but each lunar day and night period is equal to twenty seven and one third earth days. The lunar night and the lunar day are each equal to about two earth weeks.
On earth, of course, day follows night because our globe is forever rotating on its axis. It faces the sun with first one side then another and daylight falls upon the side which happens to be facing the sun. The same holds true for the moon. But whereas the earth rotates once in 24 hours, it takes the lazy moon 23 1/3 earth days to spin around once on its axis.
Our globe is enfolded in a fuzzy blanket of air which screens out some of the fierce rays of the sun. The moon is without this protection and during the long lunar day the sun's rays beat down without mercy upon the lunar landscape. Temperatures are far hotter than the hottest day in the hottest place upon our earth. The sunshine is also much brighter.
The sunshine falling upon the moon is bright enough to be seen more than 235,000 miles away. In fact, this is what we see when we look up at the golden moon in the sky.
We can see only the part of the moon which happens to be enjoying the lunar day .. the part which happens to be facing the sun.
As the moon rotates, it also revolves in an orbit around the earth. One rotation is equal to one revolution and a lunar month equals a lunar day. The same side of the moon always faces the earth and each month we see the lunar day creep across this side of the moon: It begins as a thin sliver and grows bigger until it covers the entire half of the moon which is facing us.
The moonlight we see is actually sunshine which falls upon the lunar landscape and is reflected back into space. And the face of the moon is not a very good reflector. In fact, we see only about sewn percent of the sunshine which falls upon the moon.