Re: Fw: SPACE: Total Lunar Eclipse

From: Georgie Hinklemyer <samoolives_at_yahoo.com_at_hypermail.org>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:19:14 -0000

I'm looking at it now, at about 10 pm. It's been beautiful, at least
since 9-ish when the edge ("limb") started really brightening up
again. Hope everyone else got a chance to see it!
By the way, we found a magazine article which gave a simple but clever
way to show how an eclipse works. It also nicely illustrates how the
Greeks figured out about a spherical Earth. Shine a flashlight, a
couple of feet away from a tennis ball (or other round object).
Slowly roll a second ball between the light and the first ball. You
can see how the shadow has constantly changing curved edge except when
it's "half-full," when it's completely straight. If the moon were a
flat surface, it wouldn't work that way.
--G.H.


--- In OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com, "7visions"
<7visions_at_p...> wrote:
> Got this from a friend
>
>
> "On Thursday, May 15th at 8:14 PM PDT, local weather permitting,
> a Total Lunar Eclipse should be visible for the first time in more
than two years.
> It will be all over by 10:17 PM (with appropriate changes for your
time zone),
> so don't forget to get out and take a look. Interestingly, I just
read that the
> ancient Greeks knew that our planet had to be round by inferring its
shape
> by looking at the curved (arc-like) shadow that the Earth cast on
the Moon
> as the Earth passed between the Moon and the Sun. And this was long
before
> Galileo got in trouble with the Catholic Church for postulating a
Helicocentric
> Model of the solar system. I guess the Greek's were a little ahead
of their time."
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Received on 2003-05-15 22:19:19