Russian astronaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov has captured rare footage from space of the moon flattening out until it disappears completely, a spectacle unseen by people on Earth.
On February 2, Kud-Sverchkov shared a short video of the moon he took from the International Space Station on the Russian social networking site VKontakte and on Twitter. He filmed it at the exact moment when the sunset appeared in orbit.
The clip shows how the moon, which is perceived as round and large, gradually becomes flattened until it disappears completely behind the Earth’s horizon.
Kud Svechkov explains that this is because the moon’s reflected light is distorted by passing through the Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s horizon itself is invisible, and all these sights happen at night. Therefore, the moon appears to disappear into the sky as if by magic.
In other words, before the moon disappears behind the horizon, its reflected light travels through the Earth’s atmosphere but is distorted by it, so the moon looks like it has been flattened.
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