Moon clouds. The illuminated area of the visible sphere (degree of illumination) is given by formula_3, where formula_4 is the elongation (i.e., the angle between Moon, the observer (on Earth) and the Sun). The gravitational attraction that masses have for one another decreases inversely with the square of the distance of those masses from each other. As a result, the slightly greater attraction that the Moon has for the side of Earth closest to the Moon, as compared to the part of the Earth opposite the Moon, results in tidal forces. Tidal forces affect both the Earth's crust and oceans. The
Solar eclipses on the Moon portion of the eclipse was rising. Eclipses were more frequent, tens of millions of years later, eclipses became less numerous as the lunar orbit slowly moved away from the Earth. The view of the sun, even its chromosphere was blocked by the Earth. Around some hundreds of millions of years ago, the Earth blocked all of the Sun's chromosphere, totality was slightly longer than the partial portion. At the same time there were more partial eclipses on the Moon. As the Moon recedes about 3 cm each year, eclipse totality length slowly shrinks and the partial portion slowly lengthens. The