Archive for January 2nd, 2012

Look high above the southeast horizon tonight (January 2) to see bright Jupiter and the waxing gibbous Moon very close to one another.  We’ve been talking about Moon phases recently.  January 1 saw the Moon at 1st quarter – a quarter of the way through its cycle of phases and it appeared 50% illuminated to us, with the right half illuminated in the northern hemisphere.  Between 1st quarter and full Moon are the waxing gibbous phases with the illuminated portion of the Moon growing larger than 50% but not quite full.