What’s Up With The Moon This Week? Dr. Lawrence Camarota Explains The “Da Vinci Glow”

Have you ever heard of the “Da Vinci glow?” We hadn’t either until the phrase started popping up in our news feeds a couple of days ago. According to the website earth.com, the Da Vinci glow is a celestial phenomenon that imparts a “ghostly illumination” to the Moon’s surface. This astronomical marvel is expected to be visible over the next few days around the period of the New Moon. In the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian artist, scientist, and architect (among other things), was apparently the first to theorize as to the cause of this “Earthshine.” 

To learn more about the Da Vinci glow, we turned to our go-to astronomy consultant - Dr. Lawrence Camarota, Middle Georgia State University assistant professor in the Department of Natural Sciences.

Read his Perspective.

Da Vinci Glow. Photo: NASA