Why does the moon appear when the sun goes down?

Answer 1

The sun is shining all the time. The presence of the moon doesn't mean that the sun stops shining. In fact, when you see the moon, you are seeing sunlight reflecting off the moon's surface. You may wonder how it is that you can see both the sun and moon in the sky at the same time. It's just a matter of geometry. Sometimes the sun moon and earth are lined up in such a way that we see the sun and moon in the sky. You will notice that when this happens, the moon is never full.

Answer 2

In both cases it is called 'apparent' motion. The movement that appears to be happening is not truly happening. The observed movement is due to the rotation of the earth on its axis. It is easy to think of the sun being motionless relative to the rest of the solar system. The interesting thing is that the apparent motion of the moon is the opposite of its true motion. The moon is moving from west to east around the earth, but because the earth's rotation is relatively faster, the moon appears to be moving from east to west, like the sun.
The Sun and Moon appear to move across the sky because the Earth is spinning at a rate of 15 degrees per hour. When viewed from a merry-go-round, the buildings appear to move; but it is actually you and the merry-go-round that is moving. The buildings are standing still.

The Moon does move, but at a speed of about 12 degrees per DAY, much more slowly than the Earth spins.

Answer 3

The moon appears when the sun goes down because it is on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun, making it visible in the night sky. This is due to the moon's orbit around the Earth, which causes its position relative to the sun to change throughout the month.

Answer 4

It is out day and night. When you can't see it is because it is on the other side of the earth were people there can see it.
The Light From The Sun Reflects On To The Moon Therefore We Are Able To See The Moon At Night.

Answer 5

The moon appears bright in the night sky because it is reflecting the light from the sun towards us on earth. During the day, it's very bright out because that same sunlight is diffusing in the atmosphere. The moon appears to "light up" at night because the rest of the sky is dark enough to see it.

Answer 6

It could be the other way around, but it isn't. There really is no "chase" involved when looking at the moon's orbit and the rotation of the earth, which might give an observer the idea of a "chase" in the heavens. The moon orbits the earth with nothing but indifference to the rotation of the earth, at least as regards earth's rotation making night and day. The moon will appear in any number of different places in the sky, and either at night or in broad daylight.

Answer 7

The earth rotates on it's axis in a full rotation in 24 hours. So 12 hours a full daylight and then the earth has rotated so the the other side of the earth is facing the sun for 12 hours the moon is at there at night because the sun is shining on the moon and reflecting to earth. every month at some point we don't have a moon this is called a new moon because the moon is cast under the earth's shadow.

Answer 8

The Earth rotates about its axis, causing the Sun to appear to travel around it. What we call day is when the Sun is above our local horizon. What we call night is when the Sun is below the local horizon.

The moon, on the other hand, revolves around the Earth, so the moon does indeed travel around the Earth. As it does, the Sun's light shines on the moon, and we can see the moon from time to time, usually at night, but sometimes also during the day. We don't see it too well during the day, because the Sun is so much brighter than the Moon.

Answer 9

It doesn't always.

Assuming the moon is visible that night (it rises and sets at necessary times and is not a new moon), the moon is visible because without the sun, it is dark enough to see the moon. The reason you can see the moon is because of the light reflected from the sun is beamed to Earth. You can, for the same reasons, see the moon during the day sometimes but it appears significantlydarker.

Hope this helped.

Source: BBC Focus

Answer 10

The Sun for all I know doesn't move but laws of nature states there is motion out there, proof in other planets and multi-sunned galaxies rotating around eachother. The truth is not only does the moon move but the planet earth on an axis caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon on Earth. At the center of our galaxy "The Milky Way" there lies a "Super Massive Black Hole" what I believe may lye at the center of all galaxies. So I am inclined to believe that most galaxies originated from a - "Super Massive Black Hole", to become a formation involving a large gas cloud collapsing into a relativistic star of perhaps a hundred thousand solar masses or larger. The star would then become unstable to radial perturbations because of electron-positron pair production in its core, and may collapse directly into a black hole without a supernova explosion, which would eject most of its mass and prevent it from leaving a "Super Massive Black Hole" as a remnant.