I'm Writing Fiction about the Moon: Some Basic Questions!

Mary Shafer ) wrote:
: On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:30:43 GMT, "Bruce Sterling Woodcock"
: wrote:

:
: "Mike Rhino" wrote in message
: news : "Eric Chomko" wrote in message
: ...
: How about a case where one of the poles points in the direction of the
: orbital plane? IOW, at one point in the orbit the north pole points at
: the
: sun and on the other side of the orbit the south pole points toward the
: sun. Unlike the Earth's or Mars' ~25 deg. axis tilt this other is more
: on
: the order of a 90 deg. axis tilt.
:
: Uranus comes pretty close with an axis tilt of 97.86 degrees.
:
: http://www.solarviews.com/eng/uranus.htm
:
: And Pluto is about 120 degrees, and Venus about 180 degrees.

: I'm confused here. How can you tell it's 120 deg, not 60? Or 180,
: not 0? Is the northness of the pole based on rotation direction or
: something?

Yes, I believe that rotational direction is the issue WRT axis tilt.

Eric

: Mary

: --
: Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
: