Description
Moon Phases The moon, the moon, the moon is round… …it has two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It's a children's rhyme and indicates that the moon resembles a face from Earth. But that face isn't always easy to see. Why does the moon change? The moon itself doesn't emit light. It only reflects the light from the sun. The moon orbits Earth in 29.5 days. That's why we don't always see the part of the moon that's completely illuminated by the sun. We see the moon in different phases. We call these phases: • new moon • first quarter • full moon • last quarter. During a new moon, we barely see the moon. We only see the part of the moon that isn't illuminated by the sun, and that's why it's a dark sphere. During the first quarter, we just see a tiny crescent moon emerge. A small part of the side of the moon that we can see is illuminated by the sun, the rest is not. During a full moon, we see the entire part of the moon that's illuminated by the sun. So it's a beautiful round yellow-white ball. At last quarter, we see just a tiny crescent moon before the moon goes completely dark again during new moon.
