Spectacular Video by NASA from MOON | Occultation | NASA

1 year ago
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As per some Some views and Researchers Said: On the morning of May 14, 2014, the dance of the solar system brought together two unlikely partners: our Moon, and Saturn. As the Moon orbits the Earth, it makes a circle in the sky every month, and as Saturn orbits the Sun it too follows a circular but different path around our sky.

While these two tracks cross each other, it’s relatively rare for the Moon and Saturn to be at the same place at the same time. But it does happen, and it’s called an occultation. The Moon slowly covers Saturn, blocking it for some time, then once again moves out of the way to reveal the ringed planet. In this case, the timing of the May 14 occultation made it visible only for observers in the southern hemisphere, specifically Australia and New Zealand..

I suspect a lot of people will be amazed at how big the Moon looks compared with Saturn, but I had the opposite experience! I’m used to the Moon looking big in my telescope, and Saturn small(ish). Seeing them right next to each other is a stark reminder of just how whopping huge Saturn is. It was more than 1.3 billion kilometers away during this event, while the Moon was only 380,000 kilometers distant!

Put it this way: Saturn was more than 3,000 times farther away than the Moon at the time. Like I said: Saturn is big.

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