Why does the moon sometimes appear during the day?

Arab weather - It may seem strange to look at the sky during the day and see the moon. During the day is normal? And how does the moon become visible despite the bright daylight?!

Why do we see the moon bright even though it does not shine light

The moon does not radiate light as the sun and the rest of the stars do. We see the moon only because the light from the sun is reflected from its surface, and the same thing happens during the day, and unlike the stars that also remain during the day, but we cannot see them because the sky is very bright, the moon is much brighter Because of its proximity to the Earth, so you can see it day or night as long as it is in the right part of the sky.

As for the day, the reason why we can see the moon during the day is due to two main factors: the brightness of the moon and its orbit around the Earth, and we will talk about them more in the following lines.

How does the Earth's atmosphere prevent us from seeing the moon during the day?

Gas molecules in our atmosphere - especially nitrogen and oxygen - scatter light that has a short wavelength, such as blue and violet light. This scattering gives Earth's sky a blue color, and reduces the chance of bright objects such as stars, moon, and planets appearing in space.

In order for the Moon to be visible during the day, it must overcome the scattered sunlight in the Earth’s sky, and because of the Moon’s relative proximity to the Earth, the light it reflects appears brighter to us than distant objects that emit or reflect light, such as stars or other planets, and this What makes it visible sometimes even in the daytime. But why don't we always see the moon during the day?

Why does the moon not always appear during the day?

We sometimes see the moon during the day for the same reason we see it at night - it reflects light from the sun - and its proximity to the earth makes it brighter in the day or night sky. The moon is the brightest celestial body we can see after the sun.

The stars visible from Earth are a million billion times less bright than the sun, and a million times dimmer than the moon's light, and because our sky is so bright during the day that it overshadows the starlight, but it is not always the moonlight.

But the moon is not always visible during the day, because the vision of the moon is affected by several factors, including the seasons and how clear the sky is on a particular day, in addition to the presence of different phases of the moon.

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Relationship of the appearance of the moon during the day to its orbit

The moon appears during the day on average for 25 days per month throughout the year, and the other five days in which the moon does not appear is around the new moon phase, when it is too close to the sun to be seen. When the moon is near its full phase, it is visible only at night, because the moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise.

The moon stays above the horizon for 12 hours a day, and it delays rising every day by about 50 minutes, but its appearance may not always coincide with the hours of the day. In winter, when days are shorter at mid-latitudes for example, there is less time for the moon to be visible during the day.

The best time to see the moon is during the day

The best time to see the moon in broad daylight is during the first and third quarters. These phases are the longest periods when the moon is visible with the sun in the sky, averaging five to six hours a day.

• During the first quarter (one week after the new moon): The moon can be seen rising in the eastern sky during the afternoon.
• During the third quarter (one week after the full moon): The moon is visible in the morning, in the western sky.

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