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Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Community => Topic started by: Right Arm 1 on May 11, 2021, 06:06:37 PM

Title: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Right Arm 1 on May 11, 2021, 06:06:37 PM
I have seen experiments on Youtube videos showing that when an object is exposed to direct moonlight, it is actually cooler (lower temperature) than when the same object is being shaded from the direct moonlight.  Does anyone have an explanation or theory as to why this is so?
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: fisherman on May 11, 2021, 07:27:09 PM
Things cool down because they radiate heat.  An object that is "shaded" from moonlight is prevented from radiating as much heat because whatever is shading it will block it.

Same reason a cloudy night will be warmer than a clear night.  The clouds insulate the heat.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Right Arm 1 on May 11, 2021, 08:28:22 PM
Thanks fisherman.  However, if your premise is correct, why then are objects in the SHADE of the SUN cooler than the same objects in the direct sunlight?  Moonlight’s effect on an object’s temperature is exactly opposite from sunlight’s effect. 
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Iceman on May 11, 2021, 09:27:02 PM
Yes, well, the moon is a rock orbiting us and the sun is a giant thermonuclear reactor. I dont know much else though because I, too, am allergic to google.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Right Arm 1 on May 11, 2021, 09:40:34 PM
Thanks Iceman.  I could understand it if moonlight did not exert an effect on the temp of an object, but the fact that it causes the object to get cooler (not warmer) is something I cannot comprehend or explain.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Iceman on May 11, 2021, 09:46:02 PM
Moonlight does nothing.

Being in 'moonshade' just means something lies beneath an insulator of some sort, and therefore latent heat that was stored up through a day's worth of solar radiation, doesnt escape from those spots as easily as open areas.

Moonlight 'coolness' is a classic example of the importance of understanding correlation vs. causation :)
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: jack44556677 on May 11, 2021, 09:51:00 PM
Cooling by light or sound is not as unusual as it intuitively seems.

It is unclear, in the measurements I’ve seen - mostly taken outside, whether moonlight has the effect that is claimed / ostensibly observed.

The “insulation effect” iceman described is certainly possible, and to get to the bottom of it would require controlling for that.

If you could conduct the observations all inside / in a styrofoam cooler and selectively let moonlight in and block it (of course doing proper “controls” of opening and closing said aperture and monitoring the effect on the temperature with and without moonlight when the outside temperature was the same) then you could start to figure it out.

Did any of the procedures you saw do that, to certainly demonstrate that the moonlight was the cause of the cooling (and not just the effect of the lack of thermal “blanket” of the shade)?  The ones I have seen do not control for what iceman is saying, and they really should!
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Right Arm 1 on May 11, 2021, 09:59:35 PM
Thanks Iceman. I respect your thought process but why wouldn’t the same insulator effect be in place in the shade of the sun.  It doesn’t seem right that it would only happen in the shade of the moon and NOT the shade of the sun.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Right Arm 1 on May 11, 2021, 10:09:49 PM
Thanks Jack for your thoughts.  The experiments that I saw did not incorporate anything like in styrofoam box however it was done under the shade of a tree where the branches appeared to be quite high off the ground (approx. 20 feet above the object) so it wasn't likely that the tree influenced the experiment.  I’m a flat earther so I’m inclined to believe that we don’t understand exactly what the moon is (i.e. does it somehow emit its own light vs. just act as reflecting other light from the sun). Thanks again for your thoughts.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: c0i9z on May 12, 2021, 12:02:59 AM
Thanks Iceman. I respect your thought process but why wouldn’t the same insulator effect be in place in the shade of the sun.  It doesn’t seem right that it would only happen in the shade of the moon and NOT the shade of the sun.

Because the moon gives very nearly no heat, while the sun gives a ridiculous amount of heat, so whatever is gained by the insulator effect, or, for that, matter, the heat radiating from the insulator itself, if, by far, lost from not gaining all of that sun heat.

Imagine you had a perfect insulator that exactly maintains your temperature while it's on. Your thing start lukewarm. During the day, things get warmer. A thing without the insulator will be warm, one with will be lukewarm, so the uninsulated is warmer. During the night, things get colder, moonlight or not, so a thing without the insulator will be lukewarm, one with will be cold, so the insulated is warmer.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Right Arm 1 on May 12, 2021, 01:13:05 AM
cOi9z,  thanks for your response.  Although your very first statement “Because the moon gives very nearly no heat” seems to make intuitive sense, it is not consistent with the results of the experiment.  The results show that moonlight not only gives NO HEAT, it actually TAKES HEAT AWAY!  The results show moonlight to be a “cooling” light as compared with sunlight being a “heating” light.  It is the only LIGHT that I know of that cools thing down.  This suggests to me that there is something that we do not nderstand about the moon..
Like what it really is.  Thanks again for your thoughts and feedback.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Iceman on May 12, 2021, 02:22:21 AM
Keep in mind a few things we can know about the moon, based solely on Earth-based observations.

Its solid and its made of rock and dust. We know this because new impact craters have been observed, which are surrounded by radially-symmetric trails of material ejected from the crater at the time of impact.

Another thing we know is that rock and dust dont emit light at standard temperatures. We know the moon's surface is below the melting point of rock because we observe the phases of the moon which are caused by the shadow created from sunlight.

If the moon were to emit its own cool light, it would need to have a mechanism to cast a shadow in itself as well.

Radiative cooling and thermal retention is a pretty simple explanation that doesnt require a new understanding of several other things we can observe, which is a major plus :)
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: jack44556677 on May 12, 2021, 04:31:30 AM
Thanks Jack for your thoughts.  The experiments that I saw did not incorporate anything like in styrofoam box however it was done under the shade of a tree where the branches appeared to be quite high off the ground (approx. 20 feet above the object) so it wasn't likely that the tree influenced the experiment.  I’m a flat earther so I’m inclined to believe that we don’t understand exactly what the moon is (i.e. does it somehow emit its own light vs. just act as reflecting other light from the sun). Thanks again for your thoughts.

I tend to agree that a distant tree is not going to have much impact on the rate of cooling of an object, and the largest factor is air interaction.  I’ve seen other examples involving barns and other large structures and it has been argued that, rather than an “insulation at a distance” effect, it was really the blocking/impeding of wind that accounted for the observation.

My general point is that we can speculate (jibber jabber) til we are blue in the face and learn nothing.  We have to do the measurements and try to isolate the causes/factors involved.  When newton did his work on sunlight, he did so inside a darkened room with a small aperture that would let the light in through.  I imagine a similar setup involving moonlight (ideally while keeping the cold air outside) would be a good way to proceed.

I have similar doubts as to the true nature of the moon, including its eerie glow.  It does not reflect light the way a spherical reflector does/should, and may well be an ionization effect or some sort of reflection.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: stack on May 12, 2021, 06:29:03 AM
I have similar doubts as to the true nature of the moon, including its eerie glow.  It does not reflect light the way a spherical reflector does/should, and may well be an ionization effect or some sort of reflection.

What about it does not reflect light the way a spherical reflector does/should? What's your evidence for such a claim?
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: AATW on May 12, 2021, 08:57:11 AM
Cooling by light or sound is not as unusual as it intuitively seems.
Can you expand on this?
I did find this which suggested that they have found a way to cool objects with laser light:

https://physicsworld.com/a/physicists-reveal-new-way-of-cooling-large-objects-with-light/

But it's highly technical, I don't see how that would work in natural circumstances.
In general light has energy which can only heat things.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Tumeni on May 12, 2021, 02:21:25 PM
I have similar doubts as to the true nature of the moon, including its eerie glow.  It does not reflect light the way a spherical reflector does/should, and may well be an ionization effect or some sort of reflection.

How should it reflect light, and how do you assert that would differ from what we all see at present?
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: AATW on May 12, 2021, 02:36:56 PM
I have similar doubts as to the true nature of the moon, including its eerie glow.  It does not reflect light the way a spherical reflector does/should, and may well be an ionization effect or some sort of reflection.

How should it reflect light, and how do you assert that would differ from what we all see at present?
I wonder if he's going to go down the "hot spot" route, but that of course is a feature of a smooth spherical object which the moon isn't.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: c0i9z on May 13, 2021, 05:46:36 AM
The results show that moonlight not only gives NO HEAT, it actually TAKES HEAT AWAY!

Do they, though? I don't know what experiment you're referring to specifically, but my guess is that all it really shows is that in some places, at night, items cool down faster than they do in other places. That's not surprising and there's lot of known reasons why this might happen. A proper experiment would try to account for all of these reasons and try to minimize the effect of potentially unknown reasons. It would take a number of measurements at a number of given locations on multiple days, crucially also on days when there is no moon and would, ideally, be double blinded, so that experimenter bias doesn't accidentally affect the result. Without all of that, it's hard to really know that what you think you're measuring really is what you're measuring.
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: RazaTD on May 13, 2021, 10:48:14 AM
The impossible cold moonlight has been thoroughly debunked already several times. Here is a good experiment:

https://youtu.be/zLsZwp4RWWg
Title: Re: Why is it warmer in the shadow of moonlight rather than cooler?
Post by: Pete Svarrior on May 13, 2021, 11:11:07 AM
The impossible cold moonlight has been thoroughly debunked already several times. Here is a good experiment:
If you can't even understand the question that's been asked, please do the intellectually honest thing and choose not to respond.