If I had been just a little more drunk when I read this first, I'd have probably tried.
Now, imagine yourself at some height above the ground - say a dozen kilometres. Now throw yourself at the ground, not directly, but at such an angle that you do miss it. No no, serious. It's possible to do this because the Earth is not flat or infinite. Once you miss the ground, you'll fling back around the Earth - thanks to Sir Isaac - and possibly come back to your starting point. This may not exactly be "flying" - but I'll take being a satellite! Because this is exactly what happens with satellites. Take an object sufficiently high above the ground (to be clear of obstacles like the Empire State Building or Mt. Everest, as well as to minimize atmospheric drag), and give it a sufficient sideways push - viola! You have a satellite.
Speaking of satellites, recently, the first HDTV video of the moon was captured by the Japanese Space agency JAXA's Selene mission. One of them shows Earth rising over moonscape. It's really eye catching - the strikingly beautiful blue Earth over the monochrome, barren lunar surface. Here is a still from that video.
Also recently, we had a lunar eclipse. It was pretty overcast in my area - so I couldn't see the Moon around totality. It's quite pretty usually - the Moon doesn't go totally dark - it becomes a rather dim red disc, which looks a bit eerie when the sky is clear.
While admiring the Earthrise picture, I realized a cool factoid. When it's an eclipse on Earth, it's an eclipse on the Moon as well! Say it's a Lunar eclipse down here. That means that the Earth's shadow is falling on the Moon. And that means, the Earth is blocking the Sun, as seen from the Moon - which is basically a Solar eclipse on the Moon. Similarly, if it's a Solar eclipse here, we have the Moon blocking the Sun. At that time, if you were on the Moon, you'd see Moon's shadow on the Earth. You'd probably call it a Terran Eclipse!
Good Original Thinking. Jagdish ( civil )
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