The new moon is right in front of us, but its absent light reveals plenty
J. Alex Knoll
Friday marks new moon. You might think that the new moon is lost behind the sun. But the moon is roughly 250,000 miles from earth, while the sun is more than 90 million miles away. So the moon can never be behind the sun. Rather, new moon is right in front of us, directly between earth and the sun, invisible in the blinding glare.
This makes for dark night skies much of the week, allowing you to spot more dim and distant celestial objects.