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Wednesday 30 November 2016

The Universe in 101 words: Where is night permanent?


Earth spins at a 25 degree tilt, but the Moon’s tilt is almost zero*. 

So Earth’s poles get 6 months of day then 6 months of night… but at the Moon’s poles the Sun never rises or sets, just moves around the horizon. A deep hole on the Lunar pole (like a crater or valley), so deep you couldn’t see the Sun over the rim, would be cut off from it. 

Permanently.

Billions of years of asteroids have created many polar craters like that. Some haven’t seen the Sun for billions of years, and have strange things frozen in them...

*Incidentally this is why we get seasons, and the Moon doesn’t.


 

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