Comment by dvh
1 day ago
> Now, what happens if the moon is not at the horizon, but higher up at the sky?
Moon follows the sun to the west so to move moon "higher" up in the sky you need to rewind time (15deg/hour). In e.g. 4 hours moon barely moves in it's 28 day cycle so the moon will look exactly the same (you can take a picture and compare). It's the earth rotation that make moon "go down" or up. I've read your article 2 times and I still don't understand what is apparent problem, no wonder AI had trouble. Also it's hard to reason about up and down when moon move along ecliptic which is curve. Down at noon points elsewhere as down at sunset.
> Also it's hard to reason about up and down
The moon is above the horizon. The sun is below the horizon. Seems pretty straightforward, no?
The trouble is that shouldn't the Earth block the sun's light from reaching the moon then? And the answer is no, because the space is three-dimensional, so the Earth isn't on the straight line(s) connecting the sun and the moon (sometimes it is, but that's what causes lunar eclipses, not the lunar phases).