In reply to:
One of the things I am most grateful for living at just this time on earth is that the full moon rises just at dusk and is up in the sky the entire night long. I think that is amazing, astoundingly beautiful, and inspiringly mystical. But surely, there have been whole epochs on earth when this was not the case, when the full moon rose during the day, and was on the other side of the earth during the night.
I do not believe that that is possible. As stated earlier, the moon is full when its orbit about the earth places it directly away from the earth. (More clearly, the earth is right between the moon and sun.) Thus lunar eclipses can only occur on a full moon and solar eclipses can only occur on a new moon, on those occasions when the moon's orbit is in the same plane as the earth's and the sun's. The full moon will always rise at about sunset and set around sunrise because of the orientation that makes it full in the first place. The exact time will vary depending on the observer's distance from the equator. The corollary to this is that crescent moons will be visible at different points during the daytime.
What I find scientifically mind-boggling about the moon is that its rotation is such that we always see the same face of it. This seems to me to be an extraordinary coincidence, and I would love to hear more on the subject from anyone more learned in astronomy.
The spell checker suggests replacing moon's with mooned.
