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Jun 13, 2024 · We describe how the Moon looks with the eight Moon phases, or shapes: 🌑 New. 🌒 Waxing Crescent. 🌓 First Quarter. 🌔 Waxing Gibbous. 🌕 Full. 🌖 Waning Gibbous. 🌗 Third Quarter. 🌘 Waning Crescent. If you have looked into the night sky, you may have noticed the Moon appears to change shape each night.
The Moon is a very slightly scalene ellipsoid due to tidal stretching, with its long axis displaced 30° from facing the Earth, due to gravitational anomalies from impact basins. Its shape is more elongated than current tidal forces can account for.
A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth (because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth).
Jun 13, 2024 · From Earth, it might look like the Moon is changing shape each night – from a tiny sliver to a half moon to a full moon and back again. What’s actually happening is that from our spot on Earth, we see different parts of the Moon lit up by the Sun as the Moon travels in its orbit.
Phases. In our entire solar system, the only object that shines with its own light is the Sun. That light always beams onto Earth and Moon from the direction of the Sun, illuminating half of our planet in its orbit and reflecting off the surface of the Moon to create moonlight.
Like Earth, the Moon has a day side and a night side, which change as the Moon rotates. Moon Phases Between four and seven times a year, Earth, Moon and Sun line up just right to create the cosmic-scale shadow show known as an eclipse.
Oct 4, 2017 · As the bright parts of the Moon appear to change shape during the month, each stage of the change is called a phase, and each phase carries its own name. This chart shows why this happens. The center ring shows the Moon as it revolves around the Earth, as seen from above the north pole.
