The Great Wall by Moonlight
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Francis Audet
Last Friday, an almost
Full Moon rose as the Sun set,
over this mountainous landscape north of Beijing, China.
Also near apogee,
the farthest point in its elliptical orbit around
planet Earth, it was this year's smallest and faintest Full Moon.
The Jiankou section of the
Great Wall
of China meanders through the
scene, the ancient Great Wall itself the subject of an
older-than-the-space-age myth
that it would be visible to the eye when
standing on the lunar surface.
But
even from low Earth orbit,
the large scale artifact of human
civilization is very difficult to identify.
At its farthest from our fair planet, the Moon shines brightly
in the twilight sky though, posing in the faint, pinkish band known as
the antitwilight arch or the belt of Venus.