# The Moon and Its Phases

- Link: https://thecuriosi.com/lessons/moon-phases/
- Published: 2026-10-31T14:56:22+05:30
- Author: MAHENDRA MANCHIKALAPATI

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Have you noticed that the Moon looks different from night to night? Sometimes it
is a full, round circle. Sometimes it is a thin curve, and some nights you cannot
see it at all. In this lesson you will learn about our Moon and why its shape seems
to change.

## Our Moon

The Moon is a rocky ball that travels around Earth. Something that orbits a planet
is called a **moon** or **natural satellite**. Our Moon is about a quarter as wide
as Earth, and about **384,000 kilometres** away.

The Moon has no air, no liquid water and no weather. Its surface is covered with
grey dust and **craters**. Because there is no wind or rain, astronauts’ footprints
from many years ago are still there!

### The Moon does not make its own light

The Moon does not glow by itself. It **reflects sunlight**, like a mirror reflects
a torch. The bright part of the Moon is the part lit by the Sun.

## Why does the Moon change shape?

The Moon takes about **29 and a half days** to go through all its shapes. As it 
travels around Earth, we see different amounts of its sunlit side. These changing
shapes are called **phases**.

  |  Phase |  What we see |  
   |  New Moon |  almost nothing, the lit side faces away from us |  
 |  Waxing crescent |  a thin curve of light, growing |  
 |  First quarter |  half of the Moon lit |  
 |  Waxing gibbous |  more than half lit, growing |  
 |  Full Moon |  the whole face lit |  
 |  Waning gibbous |  more than half lit, shrinking |  
 |  Last quarter |  half lit on the other side |  
 |  Waning crescent |  a thin curve, shrinking |

### Waxing and waning

**Waxing** means the lit part is growing bigger each night. **Waning** means it 
is shrinking. After the waning crescent, the cycle starts again with a new Moon.

## Model the phases at home

You can see how phases work with a simple model:

 1. In a dark room, put a lamp on one side of the room. This is the Sun.
 2. Hold a ball at arm’s length. This is the Moon. Your head is Earth.
 3. Turn slowly in a circle, keeping the ball in front of you.
 4. Watch how much of the lit side of the ball you can see as you turn.

### Example

When Noah faced the lamp with the ball in front of him, the ball looked dark: a 
new Moon. When he turned with his back to the lamp and held the ball up high, it
was fully lit: a full Moon. In between, he saw crescents and half Moons.

## The Moon and the tides

The Moon’s gravity gently pulls on Earth’s oceans. This pull helps cause the **tides**,
the rising and falling of the sea along the coast each day.

## Key takeaways

 * The Moon is a rocky natural satellite that orbits Earth.
 * It shines by reflecting sunlight.
 * Its phases repeat about every 29 and a half days.
 * Waxing means growing; waning means shrinking.

## Practice

 1. Where does moonlight really come from?
 2. What is the phase called when the whole face of the Moon is lit?
 3. What does “waning” mean?

Answers: 1 is the Sun, because the Moon reflects sunlight. 2 is a full Moon. 3 is
that the lit part is getting smaller each night.

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