A Week After the Full Moon the Moon Looks Like a Semi Circle Again What Is This Phase Called
StarChild Question of the Month for Nov 1998
Question:
What are the phases of the Moon? 
Answer:
The Moon orbits Earth at an boilerplate distance of 382,400 kilometers. The lunar month is the 29.53 days it takes to become from one new moon to the next. During the lunar month, the Moon goes through all its phases. Y'all can see the phases drawn in the image below. Just like the Earth, half of the Moon is lit by the Sun while the other half is in darkness. The phases we see outcome from the angle the Moon makes with the Dominicus as viewed from Globe. The diagram below on the correct is one you typically run across in books. Don't let information technology confuse you lot. The images of the Moon bear witness what you lot see the Moon expect like from Earth when it is at given points in its orbit. It does not prove which side of the Moon is lit past the Sun. The side lit past the Sun is always the side that is pointed toward the Sun, as seen in the diagram below on the left.Nosotros only encounter the Moon because sunlight reflects back to usa from its surface. During the grade of a month, the Moon circles once around the Globe. If nosotros could magically look down on our solar system, we would meet that the half of the Moon facing the Sunday is always lit. Just the lit side does non always face the Earth! As the Moon circles the World, the corporeality of the lit side nosotros see changes. These changes are known every bit the phases of the Moon and it repeats in a certain way over and over.
At new moon, the Moon is lined upward between the World and the Sun. Nosotros run across the side of the Moon that is not being lit by the Dominicus (in other words, nosotros encounter no Moon at all, because the brightness of the Sun outshines the dim Moon!) When the Moon is exactly lined up with the Sun (as viewed from Earth), we experience an eclipse.
As the Moon moves due east away from the Sun in the sky, we encounter a bit more of the sunlit side of the Moon each nighttime. A few days after new moon, nosotros see a thin crescent in the western evening sky. The crescent Moon waxes, or appears to grow fatter, each dark. When one-half of the Moon's disc is illuminated, we call information technology the first quarter moon. This name comes from the fact that the Moon is now ane-quarter of the way through the lunar month. From Earth, we are at present looking at the sunlit side of the Moon from off to the side.
The Moon continues to wax. One time more than than half of the disc is illuminated, it has a shape we call gibbous. The gibbous moon appears to abound fatter each nighttime until we run into the full sunlit face up of the Moon. We call this stage the full moon. It rises near exactly as the Lord's day sets and sets but as the Lord's day rises the side by side day. The Moon has at present completed one half of the lunar calendar month.
During the 2d one-half of the lunar month, the Moon grows thinner each night. We telephone call this waning. Its shape is still gibbous at this indicate, simply grows a trivial thinner each nighttime. Every bit it reaches the three-quarter point in its month, the Moon once over again shows us one side of its disc illuminated and the other side in darkness. However, the side that nosotros saw night at the first quarter stage is now the lit side. Every bit it completes its journey and approaches new moon again, the Moon is a waning crescent.
Desire another clarification of why the Moon has phases?
You can demonstrate the phases of the Moon for yourself by using a lamp and a baseball. Place the lamp with its shade removed in one end of a darkened room. Sit in the other terminate of the room and hold the baseball upward in front of you so that information technology is betwixt your face and the lamp. At present movement the ball around your head at arm's length. Do this slowly and move your arm from right to left. As the baseball game orbits your caput, you will meet it go through the same phases as the Moon.
Desire to know what stage the Moon is in correct now?
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