Questions on my mind...
What happens to dirt?
Clearly, things such as leaves, grass and lifeless human bodies decomposes and turns into dirt after a while. But what happens to dirt? At some point the dirt surely must turn into bodies and plants, but how does that happen?
Is the shadow of Earth the same size as the moon?
When you look at the moon, the part of the Earth getting in the way of the light from the sun appears to be a circle the same size as the moon. Is that because the shadow of our planet is the same size as the moon, or does it have any other explanation?
Why does hair fall off?
They say we lose 50-100 hairs daily. Why is it that if you'd pull out a hair it would hurt, but some just fall out by themselves?
(The last question I actually googled the answer. The answer is that hairs follow the Hair Growth Cycle.)
These are things I can think about.
All Love
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I like the second question! No, earth (and thereby its shadow) is roughly 4 times the size of the moon. But in general, the dark part of the moon is not shaded by earth, it's shaded by the moon itself. Only during a lunar eclipse (when earth is precisely between the moon and the sun) earth's shadow is visible on the moon (that happens a couple of times per year).
ReplyDeleteSome sunny days, you can see both the sun and the moon at the same time - then you can do an enligtening experiment: Hold up a ball so that you see the ball and the moon right next to each other. Compare the sunlit part of the ball (as you see it) to the moon - they appear to have exactly the same shape! That's because the sun shines on them from (roughly) the same direction, compared to your eyes. It's not the earth that shadows the ball, half of it is dark simply because it's not facing the sun. It's exactly the same with the moon.
/Magnus
Aaah. Enlightening! That makes sense. How about when the moon is not lit up by the sun, but you can still see it as a lighter shade on the sky?
ReplyDeleteWhen do you mean that the moon is not lit up by the sun? Half of the moon is practically always lit up by the sun (the rare exception is during lunar eclipses, which happen about twice per year, when the earth gets precisely between the moon and the sun).
ReplyDeleteTo see how little the earth and the moon interfere, consider a correct scale model: if earth is like a football, then the moon is just slightly larger than a tennis ball, and located 6 meters (!) away from earth. Not many people realize the moon is that far away. The sun (which is 25m in diameter) is then located a couple of kilometers away. The atmosphere is just 2mm thick, and the international space station orbits the football 5mm from the surface.
Of course, it happens once per month that the moon is between the earth and the sun. When that happens, we only see the dark side of the moon (oooh, pink floyd - I love that album!), which we cannot actually see because it is too dark (and right next to the sun which is very bright). But just afterwards, we can see the moon as a very thin new moon (and just before we can see it as a very thin crescent moon bent the other way).
Månkramar!
/Magnus
I don't know how to describe it properly... it's like the moon is just a lighter shade of grey than the rest of the sky. It's not yellow, not invisibly black, but just greyish compared to the sky. It's a bit shiny, but at the same time not. I saw it the other day, and it's what caused all these moon thoughts.
ReplyDeleteYou don't happen to have the answer to question 1 btw?
"the moon is just a lighter shade of grey than the rest of the sky" - yes, you're in England! :-) It sounds like there is some kind of haze or a thin layer of clouds between you and the moon.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I have a good answer to the dirt question. I suspect that part of the explanation is that the nutritients in the soil gets dissolved in water and then absorbed by plants through their roots (and thereby turned into living matter again). Other parts of the soil probably just create sediments that lie around for millennia, eventually turning into oil.
Have a great time in Paris!
/Magnus