Earth from the Moon

[donk]

Sorry, on my phone at work so not messing with the pic, can someone please post if they know what I'm talking about? The one from the surface the moon with a teensy earth...it keeps coming up on social media clickbait thingies.

I understand that perspective and photography are tricky sometimes, but with the earth being four times bigger than the moon, and the moon from the earth I'd think be about the same distance as earth from the moon, it's amazing to me that it can appear so much smaller than the moon looks from here.

Just had to say something now that I've seen the damn pic like 3 times this week

[Elen]

Sorry, on my phone at work so not messing with the pic, can someone please post if they know what I'm talking about? The one from the surface the moon with a teensy earth...it keeps coming up on social media clickbait thingies.

I understand that perspective and photography are tricky sometimes, but with the earth being four times bigger than the moon, and the moon from the earth I'd think be about the same distance as earth from the moon, it's amazing to me that it can appear so much smaller than the moon looks from here.

Just had to say something now that I've seen the damn pic like 3 times this week

Doesn't it depend entirely on what kind of camera lens you are using? A 50mm lens shows a different size than a 35mm lens. So that has to be considered also, don't you think?

[Dreamtimer]

This page has a bunch of images of earth from the moon, from space, both the earth and moon from space, the shadow of the moon going over the ocean, the moon passing in front of the earth, and more.

There is one where the earth looks like a dot, but it's from Mars.

The last one is weird. It's supposed to be from a Japanese spacecraft orbiting the moon taking video of earth rise in '08. The surface of the moon appears to crack as it goes under the spacecraft.

[donk]

I think this is the image the click baiters are using, if it's not it...it is similar:



How can Earth, which is 4x bigger, look so small from the same distance?

...well, i guess it ain't TOO small there, but I would just think it would look spectacular? Right?

I dunno, I just felt like seeing it so many time was just more seeds "they" were planting...for some reason.

Definitely getting paranoid

[Aragorn]

I think this is the image the click baiters are using, if it's not it...it is similar:



How can Earth, which is 4x bigger, look so small from the same distance?

...well, i guess it ain't TOO small there, but I would just think it would look spectacular? Right?

I dunno, I just felt like seeing it so many time was just more seeds "they" were planting...for some reason.

Definitely getting paranoid

Here's my two cents, but they're Eurocents, so they're still more valuable than Dollarcents.

• Earth is larger than the moon, and will thus appear larger when seen from the moon than the moon does when seen from Earth.

• The image of the moon as seen from Earth is subject to atmospheric lensing effects. There is no such effect on the moon. The moon does in fact have something resembling an atmosphere, but it is very thin — both in terms of how high it extends above the surface and in terms of density — and volatile, as it is comprised of carbon dioxide and water vapor, both of which sublimate from ice to gas when the surface area where they reside is heated by the sun. This vapor is however not dense or high enough to create any lensing effects, and the moon's gravity isn't strong enough to hold on to all of it under the barrage of solar winds and other cosmic radiation when the stuff is in its gaseous form.

• With the moon being smaller than Earth, the curvature of its surface (and thus of its horizon) is rounder, which further enhances the perception that Earth is larger in photographs. The only way to really experience what Earth looks like from the moon would be to go there yourself, because pictures only show part of the scenery and do not correctly convey the exact relative sizes.

• The distance between Earth and the moon varies slightly because the moon's orbit around Earth is elliptical. There is also physical evidence that the moon used to be closer to Earth during the Precambrian Era, and that it is moving farther away from us. This has an effect on Earth's rotational velocity, as well as on the experienced gravity here on Earth (due to the decrease in centrifugal forces as Earth's rotation slows down) and on the duration of an Earth day (by about 1.7 milliseconds per century, as established by way of an atomic clock). About 600 million years ago, a day on Earth lasted only 21 hours, but at the same time, there was also less felt gravity — or at least, for anything that would have been there to feel it.

• Earth is not "only four times larger" than the moon — that number pertains to the equatorial circumference only. In volume, the moon is only 2% of Earth's size, and its surface is only 7.4% that of Earth.

The image below represents the volumetric relationship as well as the mean distance to scale between Earth and the moon.

Related Wonkypedia articles:

• Earth
• Moon
• Lunar Distance
• Earth's Rotation

Lastly, I wouldn't worry about it too much, because on 13 September 1999, a magnetic radiation buildup in the nuclear waste dumps on the far side of the moon will trigger a gigantic nuclear explosion which will hurl the moon out of Earth's orbit and into deep space, thereby causing enormous amounts of geological damage here on Earth.

Hmm... No... Wait...

[Dreamtimer]

I knew a group of people who used to have end of the world parties based on announcements by well-known prophets. They were fun. And we knew there'd be another around the corner, sooner or later.

[Dumpster Diver]

I knew a group of people who used to have end of the world parties based on announcements by well-known prophets. They were fun. And we knew there'd be another around the corner, sooner or later.

Dreamy if you are throwing an "end of the world as you know it, or don't know it; sign me up. As my Daddy-in-law said, "I'll not give up my hat, a$$, and front seat in hell to miss it."

[donk]

This page has a bunch of images of earth from the moon, from space, both the earth and moon from space, the shadow of the moon going over the ocean, the moon passing in front of the earth, and more.

There is one where the earth looks like a dot, but it's from Mars.

The last one is weird. It's supposed to be from a Japanese spacecraft orbiting the moon taking video of earth rise in '08. The surface of the moon appears to crack as it goes under the spacecraft.

That's what I'm talking about DT!! Nice, never seen those

I brought the whole thing up cuz it seems like "mainstream" is PUSHING images like the one I captured, where the earth looks like the moon from the surface, when I feel it should be spectacularly bigger

I get all things aragorn points out too...like I said earlier...I gets paranoid sometimes