Naomi is an anti-vaxx dipshit and not a great person.
But I think this question was asked in good faith and is also a perfectly valid query.
Moon nomenclature can be a bit confusing. People will reference the far side of the Moon and the dark side of the Moon and conflate the two.
From our perspective, there is a near side and a far side. The "near side" is always facing Earth. And people sometimes think the side facing away from us is also the "dark" side of the Moon.
But the far side is not always in darkness. Only when we see a full moon is it dark.
Astronomers have tried to update the terminology to lunar day and lunar night, but that hasn't really caught on as popular vernacular. It's hard to undo Pink Floyd's influence.
All of this is to say, it is easy for people to get confused about the far side of the Moon being illuminated by the Sun. It's quite common to imagine it as in perpetual darkness.
But lunar night is not completely in a void of darkness. The light from the universe does very dimly illuminate the lunar backside. And while traditional optics aren't easily able to see the Moon's butt, NASA does have a special UV camera that surveys the lunar night.
It's called the "Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project."
They love their clever acronyms.
I've seen people also confused about the lighting in this photo.
The Sun is directly behind the Moon, yet the left side seems to have light wrapping around to the lunar night side.
And the reason for this makes my light-loving heart full. Because light is light and it works the same way in space as it does in my studio.
This phenomenon is called "Da Vinci glow" or earthshine. The Sun is bouncing light off the Earth, and it is reflecting onto the side of the Moon. And even though it is usually too dim to see without a very long exposure, this eclipse was able to reveal it.
Here is what earthshine looks like to human eyes adjusted for darkness.
And here is a brightened, long exposure example.
It's literally just this on a cosmic scale...
There is also moonshine, which is more than just a legally dubious beverage.
You may have already seen an example.
The left is exposed as our eyeballs would see it. And the right is brightened with long exposure and a high gain setting.
The Sun is behind the Earth, but it is shining light off the Moon and giving very dim illumination to the night side.
The Moon is a big retroreflector. You have seen a different form of retroreflection when you are driving at night and the highway signs light up as you pass. Your headlights are shining directly back at you.
The special properties of Moon dust give it a near-perfect diffuse matte reflection. And when the Sun is in the right position, it acts similarly to our car headlights and the light shines back in our direction.
A studio reflector needs to be angled just right to shine the light exactly where you want it. The angle of the light is like a bumper shot in billiards.
The Moon scatters light in all directions like a typical matte surface.
However, a non-retroreflective matte reflection on a sphere typically has a bright center and then graduates into darkness around the edges. But the Moon's super matte retroreflection maintains brightness across almost the entire surface area.
So even though the Moon is quite small compared to the Earth, its regolith creates a powerful reflection of the Sun's light. You'd think a full moon would be twice as bright as a half moon, but this retroreflective surge makes the Moon roughly 10 times brighter.
If the Moon weren't such a dusty bitch, moonlight would be dimmer and that nighttime photo of the Earth may not have been possible.
blakekathryn
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