This week will be an amazing celestial show for astronomers who enjoy watching a phenomenon called the da Vinci glow.
The event is also known as Earthshine, and is a faint glow from the “dark” side of the Moon due to sunlight reflecting off the Earth’s surface on the Moon.
This faint glow only appears on the surface of the thin crescent when the Moon is close to the horizon during the last few days and the first few days of its revolution around the Earth.
According to NASA, the main source of the Moon’s faint glow at this time is light reflecting off Earth’s clouds and sea ice.
The phenomenon is named after the Italian scientist and artist Leonardo da Vinci, who first explained this phenomenon in the fifteenth century.
Space experts say this weekend is the perfect time to spot a faint glow on the moon.
The intensity of the Earth’s brightness varies in intensity throughout the year as the light reflected from the Earth changes.
Albedo, or albedo or albedo, is light reflected from the earth, being brightest during northern hemisphere spring, with a slightly smaller peak occurring in southern hemisphere spring. This is due to the fact that in the spring in the northern hemisphere the earth tilts towards the sun, while in winter there is still snow and ice.
Because snow and ice reflect more light, Earth’s brightness is higher at this time of year than in winter, when the Arctic receives very little sunlight.
People on Earth can see the “Da Vinci glow” days before and for days after the new moon on May 19 because the sky is clear, timeanddate.com reports.
In the eastern part of the sky, people can see this phenomenon closer to sunrise on May 16-17, and on the western side, observers can see the “Da Vinci flare” on May 21-23, about an hour after sunset.
Experts predict that at this time, the light reflected from our planet could be 10% brighter.
It is best seen with the naked eye, with stargazing binoculars, or with a good small telescope.
The phenomenon could be threatened as the oceans warm and the amount of low clouds over the eastern Pacific decreases, which in turn leads to a slight decrease in reflectivity and therefore the intensity of the “da Vinci glow”, according to scientists. from the Big Bear Solar Observatory in California.
A few years ago it was believed that the brightness of the Earth was at its maximum in the northern spring, but subsequent studies have not confirmed this conclusion. However, studying the brightness of the Earth’s sunrise, which is based on the Earth’s cloud cover, is often used as a way to look for changes in the atmosphere.
And a study published in 2021 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the Earth reflects less light on the dark side of the moon due to warming, which affects the Earth’s sunrise phenomenon.
Between 1998 and 2017, researchers found that the amount of light reflected from the Earth decreased by 0.5%.
This corresponds to a decrease of about half a watt of light per square meter in two decades.
The experts said that the trapped solar radiation could further warm the ocean and further reduce the Earth’s brightness.
Source: Independent
