EARTH / MOON FROM PLANET MERCURY Robert and Joseph Stanovsky

2012 by R.S. The NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington Team are responsible for photograph number 45710 and its public release. This interesting view of Earth and Moon is a photograph taken from the vicinity of planet Mercury and thus from a position near the Sun. The sketch in Fig 1 is a reproduction of the photograph. Note that Earth is further from the Sun than is the Moon. The visible hemispheres are both brightly lighted.
Dark side not visible Earth Moon

Figure 1: The dark side of Earth is shown far from the dark side of Moon . The Earth rotates daily. It is the daily rotation of Earth that provides a view of the Moon. This occurs when the brightly lit Moon is viewed from the dark side of Earth. As shown in Fig 1, a view from the dark side of Earth is a view of dark or millions of stars. It is impossible to view the Moon from Earth because the surface of Moon is dark and it is impossible to view a dark Moon from the bright surface of Earth. If, Moon orbits Earth these contrary details may be resolved by the daily rotation of Earth combined with the orbital motion of Moon around Earth (which is doubtful). This optimistic view of the NASA photograph ignores the fact that Moon views occur daily on Earth. The photographic difficulties are resolved by assuming the NASA photograph is inverted. Consider the sketch in Fig 2 which is Fig 1 inverted.
Moon Earth

Figure 2: The bright surface of Moon can be viewed from the dark side of Earth. In Fig 2 the Moon is further from the Sun than is Earth. The bright Moon is visible from the dark side of Earth. Note that Moon is further from the Sun than is the Earth. The position of Moon relative to Earth in Fig 2 corresponds exactly and identically to the orbit of Moon around the Sun. CONCLUSIONS A view of the brightly lighted surface of Moon is visible from the dark side of Earth in Fig 2. This is the principle advantage of Fig 2. As a consequence of a recent paper that declares the Moon Orbits the Sun and NASA photograph 45710 it is likely there is an error in the photograph. The error, if one exists, is discoverable should NASA find more photographs of Earth / Moon from photographic records of the Mercury Mission.

-1-