Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: Earth has one moon. A symbol in famous love songs, movies, poems, and folklore, many myths about the Moon date back to ancient history. In fact, the name Monday originates from Moon-day. The Moon glows by light it reflects from the Sun and is frequently the brightest object in the night sky. The Moon orbits the Earth about once a month (moon-th) from about 1 light second away. The above-pictured Full Moon occurs when the Moon is nearly opposite to the Sun in its orbit. The Moon's diameter is about 1/4 that of the Earth, and from the Earth's surface appears to have almost exactly the same angular size as the Sun. Recent evidence indicates that the Moon formed from a colossal impact on the Earth about 4.5 billions of years ago, and therefore has a similar composition to the Earth. Humans walked on the Moon for the first time in 1969.