"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On 7 Jan 2004 20:51:36 -0600, in a place far, far away,
lid (k2director) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I'm doing some fiction writing about the moon, and was curious about a
couple of things. Was wondering if anyone could shed light on these
questions!

1) Is the moon iluminated only by light reflected from the Earth? I
tried to imagine that, but can't imagine if the moon rotates the
earth every month, how it doesn't get direct sunlight at some point.
Ie, come between the Earth and Sun and therefore get direct sunlight
on the lunar side opposite the Earth.

2) Is one side of the moon always in darkness and is that side
unchanging? In other words, if you were to plant a flag on the dark
side of the moon, would that flag always be in darkness during the
moon's rotation around the earth, and its own axis rotation?

3) Is it possible to be on one side of the moon that can't see the
Earth, but still gets some kind of light either reflected from Earth
or the sun? I'm working on a story that involves a character not
being able to see our planet from his vantage point, but does that
mean the character will be in pure darkness?

Any answers very much appreciated! THank you....

Good gosh, you have so much to learn. Your book will be a disaster in
terms of scientific believability unless you go off and get a modicum
of education first. Draw yourself some pictures. If you're really a
novelist, it can't be *that* hard to imagine. Any simple question
like that we answer here will only get you into much deeper trouble
(i.e., a little knowledge is a dangerous thing).

Actually better than pictures...

Get a flashlight. That's your Sun.

Get your son(if you have one) and have him stand about 5 feet from the Sun.
Your son is Earth.

Now you walk around your son (not the Sun) and keep facing your son the
entire time.

Note where the light from the Sun falls.

(Simply put as Pink Floyd put it, "There is no dark side of the moon,
really".)

Dark really meant "unknown" (just as the Dark Continent meant unknown, not
that they thought it was hard to see there.)