if one looks at the planet venus through even a small telescope, one sees that s

Question

if one looks at the planet venus through even a small telescope, one sees that sometimes it looks like a tiny crescent moon and at other times like a tiny full moon. galileo noted that whenever venus looks like a crescent it also looks significantly larger than it does when it looks like a full moon. argue (with the help of some diagrams) that this makes sense if venus goes around the sun, but not if it goes around the earth. contrast this situation with that of themoon, which does go around the earth

Explanation / Answer

The ring around the Moon is caused by cirrus clouds up in the atmosphere. Those couds are about 5 - 7 miles up, where the temp is about 70 degrees below zero, so the clouds are made of ice crystals. The Moons light passes through the crystals like light pasing through a prism, so you get a halo. Some are small and some large. The large halo usually means precipitation sometime during the next 36 hours.

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