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Why is one half of earth alway dark?

Updated: 8/20/2019
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12y ago

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Half of the earth is always dark because the Earth is opaque and the side facing the sun blocks sunlight from reaching the other side of the Earth. If we were in a star system with multiple stars we might have a chance of having more than half of the surface of the Earth illuminated but as we only have the one sun we will always have day and night.

Note that strictly speaking the dark side of the earth is not totally dark - it gets some reflected light from the moon most of the time and a tiny bit of light from the stars, not to mention all the anthropogenic light sources that get switched on at night.

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Q: Why is one half of earth alway dark?
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When one half of earth has sunlight the other half is dark?

Because the earth rotates and each part is illuminated as it turns 'toward' the sun and because the earth moves around the sun that's why.


Why is one side of the moon called the dark side?

It's not. The moon is always half light and half dark, but it's not always the same places. -- Take a soccer ball and a flashlight into a dark room. -- Turn on the flashlight, and point it at the soccer ball. -- Half of the ball is lit up, and the other half is dark. -- No matter how you turn the ball, no matter how quickly you move or which way you bend, no matter how you manipulate the flashlight, no matter how much you wiggle and dance ... 50% of the surface of the ball is lit up, and the remaining 50% of its surface is dark. -- 50% of the Earth is lit up, and the remaining 50% of it is dark. The light and dark places keep changing, but the Earth is always half light and half dark. -- 50% of the Moon is lit up, and the remaining 50% of it is dark. The light and dark places keep changing, but the Moon is always half light and half dark.


Would half of he earth freeze if the earth stopped revolving around the sun?

No.the Earth would be stuck in one season. it would be dark and the dark side of Earth qould have less food and animal life and human-life would probably end :'(


Why does the moon have a dark side but the earth doesn't?

Earth does have a dark side. When you are on that dark side it is called night. Both Earth and the moon get their light from the sun. Since they are both spherical and there is only one sun in our solar system, the sun can only light up half of each object at a time.


Why does half of earth experience night when the other half of earth is experiencing day?

The Sun is a single source of light. Therefore it can only shine its light on one side of the Earth at a time. The other side is then obviously dark. Try shining a torch on a tennis ball in a dark room. One side will by light and the other side will be dark.Apart from the dark and light part,there is also a part that is fairly dark known as the prenumbra. dark-umbra fairly dark-prenumbra


Which moon phase is not illuminated?

One half of the Moon is always illuminated, except during a lunar eclipse. But we only see part of it.You may be referring to the new moon, when the half that is lit up is facing away from the Earth, and the half that faces Earth is dark.


Why cant the whole moon be seen from earth?

A2. The Moon keeps one side locked towards Earth. Thus whether it were illuminated or not, we can never see the far side of the Moon.Incidentally, there is a marvellous movie of the complete Lunar cycle under Moon/Tidal effects in Wikipedia.A1. The sun casts a light on one side of the moon and the other side is a dark shadow. So if there is a half moon, for example, from earth, we can see half of the lighted side and half of the dark side, which makes it look like the moon is cut in half. Since the Earth rotates, we can see a different side every night, and that's how we can see more or less of the lighted side of the moon. For a new moon, Earth can see the whole dark side and none of the lighted side. For a full moon, Earth can see the whole lighted side and none of the dark side.


Does Jupiter ever get dark?

All planets have daytime on one half of the planet and nighttime on the other half. Where it is night on Jupiter, it is dark.


Why is there a dark side to the moon?

Excellent question. You can answer it in about 30 seconds, with a simple experiment that you can do on your own. -- Take a flashlight and a small ball (tennis, ping-pong, baseball, etc.) into a room that has no mirrors. -- Turn on the flashlight and turn off the room lights. -- Can you find a way to illuminate more than half of the ball with the flashlight ? The moon is the ball (and the Earth is another one). The sun is the flashlight. Each ball is half light and half dark at any time. As the ball spins, the area that's light keeps changing, and the area that's dark keeps changing. But it's always half and half. There's no area of the moon that's always dark. But at any time you want to choose, half of the moon is dark, and half of the Earth is also dark, because the sun is the only flashlight around.


What is one half of the earth when divided by the equator?

One half of the earth is a hemisphere. There is a northern, southern, eastern, and western hemisphere.


Why does the moon have a dark side but earth doesn't?

I may not be right but I think because the moon moves it makes a dark side on the earth so the earth does not need one. Also one side if the earth can not be dark all the time!! The. It would be might all the time!


What is half of Earth's surface?

A hemisphere is one half of the sphere that makes up Earth's surface.