Leonardo Da Vinci. He is undoubtedly one of the most known persons of our time. A lot of controversy arises at the mere mention of this guy's name, and Da Vinci himself-when alive- was no stranger to this. Whether or not we believe a certain Author's claims of Da Vinci's Connections to a Secret Society or his 'Social Preferences', we have to admit that he was a Genius par excellence. Genius in its PUREST form!
Very few know that Da Vinci was a great Astronomer too. One of his finest works in Astronomy was solving the ancient riddle of 'Earthshine'.
Earthshine??!
You can see Earthshine whenever there's a crescent Moon on the horizon at sunset. Look between the horns of the crescent for a ghostly image of the full Moon. That's Earthshine. The image shown above is Da Vinci's Sketch of Earthshine. (Source: NASA.gov)
The Reason...
When the sun sets on the Moon, it gets dark-but not completely dark. There's still a source of light in the sky: our very own Earth. Earth lights up the lunar night 50 times brighter than a full Moon, producing the ashen glow-or the EarthShine.
Where Da Vinci goofed up..
We cant blame the poor guy! First, he was in the 1500's and Second, it required a lot of guts to be a 'Free thinker' in his times. Still, he was wrong about TWO things as far as Earthshine was concerned...
- He said that the Moon was filled with Oceans, which we know, is not.
- Earth's Oceans were the Primary source of Earthshine. But actually, the CLOUDS are as they do most of the reflecting..
Yeah, he did goof up at places, but he had got the Basics right, and had understood Earthshine way back in the 1500's.
Who knows what else went on in the mind of that great thinker. One can't stop to think of the possibility of him having solved the riddles of space and time: Something for which Einstein slogged all his life.
Kudos to the man, an example for Humanity!
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