Talk:Earth's shadow

Venus belt

This article says that the Venus belt is named so because Venus is often in it, yet the Venus Belt article says that Venus is NEVER in the Venus belt since Venus can never be opposite the Sun from the earth (because it is closer to the sun), and thus it cannot be in the Venus belt which is opposite the sun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.106.103.58 (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Comments from the peanut gallery

I came here because of a post at Wikipedia_Talk:Physics. The article looks pretty good as it stands. One section you might want to add is a very short description of lunar eclipses using an {{main|lunar eclipse}} template and possible {{seealso|umbra}}. Another section might cover satellites passing into earth's shadow.

The following quote could be worded a little better.

"The Earth's shadow is as curved as the planet Earth is, and this shadow extends hundreds of thousands of miles into space. When the Moon, the Sun and the Earth are in the right position, the Earth's shadow makes the Moon appear to be red, creating a Lunar eclipse.[3]"

In particular earth's shadow makes the moon dark not red. The redness comes from a ring of light scattered through earth's atmosphere. Essentially, a person on the moon would see a ring (or portion of a ring) of light around earth corresponding to sunrises and sunsets on earth. That statement itself is probably too simplistic, but it gives the right idea. (Perhaps the redness can be attributed to the belt of Venus, I don't know.)

Further, while Earth's umbra extends hundreds of thousands of miles into space the anteumbra (where earth is smaller then the sun but still blocks out some of the light) extends forever. Further this statement may better fit in the umbra article since this article is concerned with the atmospheric effect and the atmospheric effect only goes as far as the atmosphere. While there is no end to Earth's atmosphere the highest part we see light scattered from in the day is probably significantly close then 100k miles.

It is a fun little article. I am glad to have read it. TStein (talk) 20:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much TStein. I have incorporated many of your suggestions and may try to add more as we go along. Invertzoo (talk) 02:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

A question

Isn't this effectively what night is?? I don't get that there is anything special about the shadow at this time compared to the much bigger shadow that occurs later in the evening... 87.115.74.146 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

In one sense, yes you are right: this effect is all part of the same shadow that causes night. "Night" is a name we give to the effect of the shadow of the Earth as it falls on the planet itself. On planet Earth, when "night" happens, we see it simply as everything getting dark, staying dark for a fairly long period of time, and then getting light again. The subject of this article on the other hand is a phenomenon which is clearly visible in the sky as an odd-looking dark blue band, with a pink band above it, on the horizon opposite the sunset or sunrise. If you saw it, you might say, "What are these colored bands I am seeing?" The answer to that question is that the dark band effect is caused by the shadow of the Earth as if falls onto the atmosphere of the Earth. If you call it the "dark segment" that may make it easier for you to think of this as an odd-seeming sky appearance which has an interesting explanation. Sunset or sunrise are simply night starting and night ending, but we also have articles on these two topics. Lunar eclipse is simply the shadow of the Earth falling on the moon, but we have that as a separate article too. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 22:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help!

I wanted to thank all the various editors who have helped fix this new little article up before it debuts as a DYK. Invertzoo (talk) 20:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Image clarification

Can we have an image with the shadow actually marked? Is it the grey bit at the horizon, the dark blue bit above that, or the grey bit between the blue and the pink? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

We will consider marking it in one of the images, however if you look at the images when they are larger than thumbnail size, I think it becomes clearer what you are looking at. The dark segment or Earth's shadow is the dark bluish band reaching from the horizon up to where the color shades into pink. In the first image, it is necessary to realize that the ocean itself is the lowest grey-blue part. And in the second image there is a narrow, very low cloud bank that shows as grey and obscures part of the horizon. I have added notes to the captions to explain this, hopefully that is enough. Invertzoo (talk) 13:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Earth's circumference which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:03, 6 January 2019 (UTC)