La Luna

A few weeks ago I looked up at the sky and saw something wonderfully familiar: the moon. I was happy to be reminded that everywhere in the world we can look up at the same giant rock stuck in our gravitational pull. I slowly realized, however, the moon didn't actually seem that familiar. I was trying to find the "man in the moon" (which I have never really been able to see, like is it a whole person or just a face?) and realized the face of the moon looked completely different.

Today I did some research and found that much like the notifications button on Facebook, your location on planet Earth determines the way you see the moon. So this is how it works: Imagine you are standing exactly on the equator and the moon is directly above you. If you go north, the moon would be in the southern sky. If you move south, the moon would be in the northern sky. Standing on the equator, if you look at the moon facing south, you would see it as the northern hemisphere sees it. If you turn around and face north, you would see the moon how the southern hemisphere sees it. It looks like it is flipped upside down. Got it?

It's all very relative. The moon itself is not changing, just the way you look at it. There are approximately 100 metaphors that I could make about this, but I don't want to push it too far. I'll let your mind wander there on its own. I'm just going to bask in the comfort that I have found in seeing my beloved moon, despite his unfamiliar face.


If I did a bad job explaining the whole moon face thing, check this out.