A co-worker mentioned today that daytime now is 3 hours longer than it was at the winter solstice. I have my own little marker: When the sun climbs high enough in the sky to still be above the horizon by the time it clears the building in front of mine. I then get the Return of Sunset. I get rays of sun again on my living room wall. I took a picture of them, too, to show you. With a flash. I didn't realize the flash would drown out the soft sunlight. Duh! But I have a picture of the sunset. :-) Enjoy!
Oh, is that why!
I subscribed to an online Page-A-Day calendar last year, and for Valentine's, they gave me a code to subscribe to one for free this year. So I opted for the Fact or Crap calendar. Browsing January, I got the answer to a puzzlement: Why do you see the whole moon even when it's new? Y'know, you look up, see that bare line of a crescent, but can also make out the rest of the circle, the rest of the moon. Why isn't the dark part completely invisible? Earthshine, that's why. Just like the moon, the Earth reflects sunlight, too - enough to let you make out the whole moon even when it's dark. The strength of the earthshine depends on Earth's cloud cover. I knew the Earth reflected light, like the moon, if not as well; I just never realized that was why a new moon is visible. UPDATE: There was a derailment in the comments; two trains of thought couldn't stay on the same track. My American pop culture references do not extend to TV-series of the 1950...