What percentage of the darkside of the moon do you see during the first and third quarters?

Answer 1

The moon has an interesting feature of its orbit that is referred to as being 'in step' with the orbit of Earth. This means that it rotates in the same amount of time that it takes to revolve around the Earth so that the same side is always facing the Earth. This leads to the side that always faces away from us being called the 'dark side' even though it actually receives just as much light as the side that always faces us, that is about half the time. When the moon is full, the half that is lit up coincides with the half that faces us. When it's a new moon, the half that is lit up is entirely on the so-called 'dark' side. To answer your question directly, during first and third quarters, you still don't see any of the dark side of the moon, but half of the face that you can see is lit up, as is half of the dark side, while the other half that you can see is in dark, just like the other half of the dark side. Hope this explains things

Answer 2

During the first and third quarters, you can see 50% of the dark side of the moon. This is because the moon is half-lit during these phases, with half of the dark side facing away from Earth and half facing towards us.

Answer 3

There's no place on the moon where the sun is always 'up'.

At any moment, 50% of the moon is illuminated by the direct sun,

and the other 50% isn't, just like any sphere being shined upon by

a flashlight.

The exact areas of light and dark keep changing, just as they do

on earth, and on any other rotating body in the solar system.

Answer 4

At the moments of First Quarter and Third Quarter, the half-disk that you see is

50% of the "light side" ... half of the moon's illuminated surface.

The entire moon is still there in the sky. The 'missing' half of the disk is comprised of

half of the moon's dark side, which you can't see at that time. Because it's dark !

Answer 5

Half of it. The Moon is essentially a big ball of rock floating in space, and 99.9% of the time, half of it is illuminated by the Sun.

However, for a couple of hours two or three times a year, it's illuminated less than half, sometimes not at all - when the Moon goes into the Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse.

Answer 6

Half of it at each of those points in time. That's 50 percent.

(Comment: I don't like the expression "darkside of the Moon". It can be so confusing.

The question could mean "far side of the Moon". In that case the answer is about zero percent.

However, it probably means the unlit hemisphere, at those quarter phases. In that case the answer could be 50 percent. On the other hand you can't usually see it, so the answer could again be zero. I think the question could be phrased better.)

Answer 7

it depends on the phase like if its on the full moon phase then it appears to be fully illuminated but its really only half illuminated because half of the moon is always illuminated and half of it is always dark.

Answer 8

None. Every point on the moon is in sunlight for about two weeks,
and then in dark for the next 2 weeks.

Except for the bottoms of deep craters near the moon's poles, which
never get any sunlight at all.

Answer 9

Exactly 50%. Same as the nominal fraction of earth and every other planet in the solar system.

We're not saying that there is any one place on the moon that's always illuminated.

What we're saying is that at every moment, half of the moon is in sunlight, but the

exact area that it includes keeps changing, just as it does on earth.

Answer 10

Approximately half. Because the Moon is orbiting the Earth, various fractions of this illuminated surface are visible, depending on the angle from which we see it.

(During a lunar eclipse, some or all of the sunlight is blocked by the Earth. Also, since the sun is larger than the moon, very slightly more than half of the moon is lit.)

Because of its rotation, no one side of the moon is PERMANENTLY lit. Half of it is facing the Sun and the other half facing away. However, there is a location from which the sun is always visible in the south pole of the moon.