I’m hoping that the email I just received from my Astronomy professor from last term is a joke. A very bad, very silly joke. I’m more than a little worried that an actual astronomer could look at the picture below for longer than the 5 seconds it took me to realize that there’s something very wrong.
This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. And, you also see the sun below the moon. An amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. You may want to save this and pass on to others.
This is NOT a picture taken of a sunset at the North Pole. How do I know? Because by Week 2 of that astronomy class, I had learned about ‘angular size’. The short explanation is that angular size is how astronomers measure the size of a celestial object, in this case the Sun and Moon. We know that if you were to place the two side by side, the Moon is much smaller than the Sun. But because the Moon is closer to Earth than the Sun, they both look to be about the same size.
This is a very basic concept in Astronomy and I’m more than a little worried about exactly what the atrocious amount of tuition I’m paying is being spent on.
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