On January 6, 2023, at approximately noon, I happened to take a flight from Svolvær, Norway to Bodø, Norway, which, took me from 21.8 degrees latitude to 22.8 degrees latitude, which took me from [just inside polar night] to [just inside daytime].
I saw the moon at takeoff and the sun at landing.
It was an absolutely miraculous, specatular coincidence -- the latitudes I was flying over, the time, the date, the moon phase, the flight path.
This flight allowed me to have a full 3D view of space -- the moon, the Earth, the sun, all within an hour.
It was the first time I felt that the moon and sun weren't just discs flying around the sky randomly, but rather that I was the one flying through space, had a 3D sense of where the moon was behind me and where the sun was peeking ahead of me, and that the Earth felt curved as I moved out of the view of the moon and into the view of the sun.
On January 6, 2023, at approximately noon, I happened to take a flight from Svolvær, Norway to Bodø, Norway, which, took me from 21.8 degrees latitude to 22.8 degrees latitude, which took me from [just inside polar night] to [just inside daytime].
I saw the moon at takeoff and the sun at landing.
It was an absolutely miraculous, specatular coincidence -- the latitudes I was flying over, the time, the date, the moon phase, the flight path.
This flight allowed me to have a full 3D view of space -- the moon, the Earth, the sun, all within an hour.
It was the first time I felt that the moon and sun weren't just discs flying around the sky randomly, but rather that I was the one flying through space, had a 3D sense of where the moon was behind me and where the sun was peeking ahead of me, and that the Earth felt curved as I moved out of the view of the moon and into the view of the sun.
My pictures and whiteboard illustration:
https://imgur.com/TYFAdoP