August 30, 2025
You were not dropped into the cosmos as a stranger. You came from it entirely: borrowed from stars, carried by Earth, warmed by the Sun, and...
A Two Percent Moon
Birthday · August 30, 2025
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APOD published August 30, 2025. Credit: Marina Prol. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A young crescent moon can be hard to see. That's because when the Moon shows its crescent phase (young or old) it can never be far from the Sun in planet Earth's sky. But even though the sky is still bright, a slender sunlit lunar crescent is clearly visible in this early evening skyscape. The telephoto snapshot was captured on August 24, with the Moon very near the western horizon at sunset. Seen in a narrow crescent phase about 1.5 days old, the visible sunlit portion is a mere two percent of the surface of the Moon's familiar nearside. At the Canary Islands Space Centre, a steerable radio dish for communication with spacecraft is tilted in the direction of the two percent Moon. The sunset sky's pastel pinkish coloring is partly due to fine sand and dust from the Sahara Desert blown by the prevailing winds.
Image credit: Marina Prol