Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (About this sound pronunciation (help·info)), (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519), was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci points out, however, that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.

Leonardo Da Vinci: The Artist That Solved The Riddle of Earthshine

Already during the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci had correctly gathered enough information and drawings to explain the nature of earthshine. In Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester, published in the early 16th century, he states his belief that the Moon possessed an atmosphere and oceans, and that it was a fine reflector of light because it was covered with so much water. He also speculated about how storms on Earth could cause the earthshine to become brighter or dimmer, which is indeed observable with modern instrumentation.

Once again, using his observations of the secondary light phenomenon, he formed these provocative words within his Codex Leicester.

He wrote:

Some have believed that the moon has some light of its own, but this opinion is false, for they have based it upon that glimmer visible in the middle between the horns of the new moon…this brightness at such a time being derived from our ocean and the other inland seas — for they are at that time illuminated by the sun, which is then on the point of setting, in such a way that the sea then performs the same office for the dark side of the moon as the moon when at the full does for us when the sun is set.

http://factoidz.com/leonardo-da-vinci-the-artist-that-solved-the-riddle-of-earthshine/