Surprised I had to go this far down to find someone asking. Yeah you nailed it that's exactly what causes it. Unclear whether the same phenomenon can happen with a sunset, but my assumption is that it would be the reverse effect-- i.e. the sun would start to look more like an arch with the points touching the horizon.
But the moon is always traveling in the same direction, and the earth always rotates in one direction. So, certain alignments and relative movements will be impossible.
Just to add clarity, the both rotate the same direction and revolve generally the same, but as far as I can remember, the moon has the second most eccentric orbit of a major body in the solar system. Its path relative to the earth moves up and down the sky. Most other bodies are locked in the ecliptic plane from the solar systems formulation. The moon has a troubled past that sent in a weird way. This kind of alignment id guess is fairly rare. Tilted where the horns are pointed left or right would be a lot more common. Nature is awesome.
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u/NuclearThane 17h ago
Surprised I had to go this far down to find someone asking. Yeah you nailed it that's exactly what causes it. Unclear whether the same phenomenon can happen with a sunset, but my assumption is that it would be the reverse effect-- i.e. the sun would start to look more like an arch with the points touching the horizon.