Who crashed on the moon?

@suzianne said
Incorrect. The degree of difference is inconsequential.

During any new moon, we see none of the sunlit portion. Therefore the entire sunlit portion is on the other side. Since the sunlit portion is, by necessity, half of the moon's surface, this means the degree of difference caused by the angle of the sun's rays isn't enough to cause any of the far side to darken, nor any of the near side to be lit.

Nope. All of that is almost true. But not quite. We're not dealing with perfect spheres and infinite distances.

@Shallow-Blue
That is a wee picky. We do see a bit of the 'back side' because it wobbles a bit but for the most part, we see only the 'frontside' since it's 'year' is the same as it's 'day'.
It is interesting to me the moon is receding about 2 cm a year and that measured really accurately by the retroreflectors left on the moon.
It's really funny, the moon landing deniers have nothing to say when you tell them about the retroreflectors, I think one dude said, it was put there by robots.
Sure, robotics in the 1960's SO advanced🙂
For one thing such a robot would have had world headlines in itself and another it took humans to actually aim it right so light from the lasers would hit those reflectors which pumped a few photons back to earth. A robot from 1970 capable of doing all that. What a joke.

They STILL piss me off🙂

@suzianne said
Incorrect. The degree of difference is inconsequential.

During any new moon, we see none of the sunlit portion. Therefore the entire sunlit portion is on the other side. Since the sunlit portion is, by necessity, half of the moon's surface, this means the degree of difference caused by the angle of the sun's rays isn't enough to cause any of the far side to darken, nor any of the near side to be lit.

You are incorrect.

The only time the full rear hemisphere of the moon is fully lit is during a total eclipse.

Basic geometry.

@divegeester
except for the part where the lunar orbit is tilted a bit compared to Earth orbit so it doesn't always get in the way of the sun so it is fully lit every time it is on the sun side of its orbit. eclipse has nothing to do with lighting the backside.
You might quibble over the definition of fully lit, it might be off a few degrees or so but in general it the backside is fully lit every time it gets anywhere near the line between Earth and sun.

@sonhouse said
@Shallow-Blue
That is a wee picky. We do see a bit of the 'back side' because it wobbles a bit but for the most part, we see only the 'frontside' since it's 'year' is the same as it's 'day'.
It is interesting to me the moon is receding about 2 cm a year and that measured really accurately by the retroreflectors left on the moon.

Thing is, all of those effects are related.