Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Objectives:
1. What are the Phases of the Moon?
2. What are the phases of the moon list?
3. How are the phases of the moon
caused?
Before we describe the phases of the Moon, let’s describe what they’re not. Some people
mistakenly believe the phases come from Earth’s shadow cast on the Moon. Others think that the
Moon changes shape due to clouds. These are common misconceptions, but they’re not true.
Instead, the Moon’s phase depends only on its position relative to Earth and the Sun.
The Moon doesn’t make its own light, it just reflects the Sun’s light as all the planets do. The Sun
always illuminates one half of the Moon. Since the Moon is tidally locked, we always see the same
side from Earth, but there’s no permanent “dark side of the Moon.” The Sun lights up different
sides of the Moon as it orbits around Earth — it’s the fraction of the Moon from which we see
reflected sunlight that determines the lunar phase.
Moon Phases
At full Moon, the three bodies also lie approximately in a line, but this time, the Moon is on the
opposite side of Earth, so the Sun illuminates the whole side facing us.
At first quarter and last quarter, the Moon lies perpendicular to a line between Earth and the
Sun. We see exactly half of the Moon illuminated by the Sun — the other half lies in shadow. The
"quarter" used to name these phases refers to the respective fraction of an orbit that the Moon
has completed since new Moon.
The illuminated part of the Moon gradually transitions between these phases. To remember the
in-between phases you’ll need to understand these terms: crescent, gibbous,
waxing, and waning. Crescent refers to phases where the Moon is less than half-illuminated, while
gibbous means more than half is illuminated. Waxing means “growing” or expanding in
illumination, and waning means “shrinking” or decreasing in illumination. After new Moon, a slice
of reflected sunlight becomes visible as a waxing crescent. The lunar crescent grows until first-
quarter Moon. As the sunlit portion of the Moon continues to increase to more than half of the
Moon’s face, the Moon turns waxing gibbous.
Then, after the full Moon the sunlit fraction begins to decrease again (though it still takes up
more than half the face of the Moon) to make a waning gibbous and then a third-quarter Moon.
The slice of sunlight continues to decrease until the moon is a waning crescent and then a new
Moon. The whole cycle (from new Moon to new Moon) takes about 29.5 days. If you have a hard
time remembering which way the moon phases go, just think: “white on right, getting bright!”
2. What are the phases of the moon list?
Cycle of phases
A phase of the Moon is a classification of how it appears to observers on Earth. This
concerns the relationship between the part that is bright and the part that is dark.
A detailed list of the phases of the Moon is:
New Moon
Waxing Crescent
First Quarter
Waxing Gibbous
Full Moon
Waning Gibbous
Last Quarter
Waning Crescent
Most people just use an abbreviated list of phases:
New Moon
First Quarter
Full Moon
Last Quarter
Lunar month
The Moon goes through a cycle of these phases during the 29.53 days of what is
called the Lunar Month.
New Moon
The cycle of phases start with a New Moon, where the sunlight is completely behind
the Moon. The illumination you see is light reflected off the Earth to the Moon.
First Quarter
In the nights that follow, the relative angle of the Sun shining on the Moon changes
such that the part you can see slowly increases to the First Quarter. It is really
misnamed, since it looks like half the Moon is illuminated.
Full Moon
The relative angle of the Sun shining on the Moon continues to increase until you
see a Full Moon. This is where you see the surface facing you illuminated 100%. It
means that the Sun is directly behind the Earth and fully illuminating the Moon.
Blue Moon
Since the Lunar Month is less than a month on Earth, every 2.7 years there is a
month that has two Full Moons. The second Full Moon is called a "Blue Moon" for
some reason or another. It isn't really blue but is responsible for the expression
"Once in a Blue Moon."
Cycle completed
The cycle continues with the view of the Moon getting smaller until you see the
Waning Crescent sliver of the Moon.
3. How are the phases of the moon caused?
The Moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 382,400 kilometers. The lunar month is the 29.53 days it
takes to go from one new moon to the next. During the lunar month, the Moon goes through all its phases.
You 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 result from the angle the Moon makes with the Sun
as viewed from Earth. The diagram below on the right is one you typically see in books. Don't let it confuse
you. The images of the Moon show what you see the Moon look like from Earth when it is at given points
in its orbit. It does not show which side of the Moon is lit by the Sun. The side lit by the Sun is always the
side that is pointed toward the Sun, as seen in the diagram below on the left.
We only see the Moon because sunlight reflects back to us from its surface. During the course of a month,
the Moon circles once around the Earth. If we could magically look down on our solar system, we would
see that the half of the Moon facing the Sun is always lit. But the lit side does not always face the Earth!
As the Moon circles the Earth, the amount of the lit side we see changes. These changes are known as the
phases of the Moon and it repeats in a certain way over and over.
At new moon, the Moon is lined up between the Earth and the Sun. We see the side of the Moon that is
not being lit by the Sun (in other words, we see 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 eastward away from the Sun in the sky, we see a bit more of the sunlit side of
the Moon each night. A few days after new moon, we see a thin crescent in the western evening sky. The
crescent Moon waxes, or appears to grow fatter, each night. When half of the Moon's disc is illuminated,
we call it the first quarter moon. This name comes from the fact that the Moon is now one-quarter of the
way through the lunar month. From Earth, we are now looking at the sunlit side of the Moon from off to
the side.
The Moon continues to wax. Once more than half of the disc is illuminated, it has a shape we call gibbous.
The gibbous moon appears to grow fatter each night until we see the full sunlit face of the Moon. We call
this phase the full moon. It rises almost exactly as the Sun sets and sets just as the Sun rises the next day.
The Moon has now completed one half of the lunar month. During the second half of the lunar month, the
Moon grows thinner each night. We call this waning. Its shape is still gibbous at this point, but grows a
little thinner each night. As it reaches the three-quarter point in its month, the Moon once again shows us
one side of its disc illuminated and the other side in darkness. However, the side that we saw dark at the
first quarter phase is now the lit side. As it completes its journey and approaches new moon again, the
Moon is a waning crescent.
Activity 1: Word Search
Activity 2: Jumbled Letters
1. WEN NOOM -
2. GNIXAW CRESCTEN -
3. TSRIF RAUQRET -
4. LLUF NOOM -
5. TASL RAUQRET -
Activity 3: Multiple Choice
1. The moon seems to change shape from day to day in a cycle that lasts about a
month as it goes through ____.
a) revolutions
b) phases
c) rotations
d) eclipses
9. During the New Moon phase, the Moon leaves the sky for
awhile.
o A. True
o B. False
1. B
2. A
3. C
4. D
5. B
Activity 4: Fill in the blank
1. Moon phases
2. new Moon
3. full Moon
4. first quarter and last quarter
5. waxing crescent.
Activity 5: Matching Type
Enrichment Answer:
1. B
2. A
3. Sun
4. C
5. A
6. B
7. B
8. A
9. B
10.C