On the 24th November 2022, I went to Gran Canaria as part of a team taking part in a gymnastics display and festival, which allowed me to look at the sky from a different part of the world. One of the main differences I noticed - and what shocked me a lot - was the fact that the moon seemed to be in a different position to how we view it at home. It was in the stage between the first quarter and a waxing gibbous, but it was at a 90° angle to how I usually see it.
This led to some research, when I found out that people in the Southern Hemisphere see the same phases of the moon at the same time as in the Northern Hemisphere - just upside down! This therefore explained why it was at a different angle in Gran Canaria, which is a lot closer to the equator than England is.
So this raised the question of why is the moon viewed in different positions across the world? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. If you travelled from one pole to the other, you’d witness the Moon rotating 180°. This is because the moon is in the same position compared to the Earth, but it is being viewed from different places on Earth at the same time. For example, if you viewed the moon from the North Pole (90°N), it would be completely flipped from if you viewed it from the South Pole (90°S) at the exact same time.
This diagram I drew helps to demonstrate the way the moon is viewed from different latitudes, at the same time in the same night.
This whole topic is quite interesting to me, as it is something I have never, and probably wouldn't ever think of, until I witnessed it for myself and this question was raised within my mind.
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