The India Post Team, Chandigarh 24th June, 2008:Galileo (1609 AD) was the first astronomer to observe the moon with a telescope. Based on the detailed observations he concluded that the features on the moon are not the reflections of the imperfections of the Earth but are rather indigenous to the moon.
Right from the Aristotle time (350 BC), various Greek philosophers had argued that the stars and moon are the perfect shining orbs in the sky with no imperfections, whereas the earth has imperfections in the form of mountains and valleys. According to their argument, the moon is like a shining mirror that reflects the Earth’s imperfections. Galileo challenged this belief apart from several other beliefs. The enclosed images show you the reality.
According to different images send by Dr. Sandeep Sahijpal, Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh the full size image moon taken on 22 June, 2008. The moon shows two distinct phases of the moon taken on different dates. Please observe that there is a common region on the surface of the moon that is illuminated in both the phases. Notice the light and shadow effects of the craters, mountains and valleys in this region. There is a reversal in the pattern due to the change in the direction of the sun. The sun would be towards left of the moon in the left image and vice versa. In order to highlight the effect, a high magnification images of moon – Chanda Mama or Woman with Spinning Wheel.