Check out 10 top facts about our universe!
But, as the Moon moves around the Earth, the face pointing towards us gradually becomes hidden from the Sun until we can hardly see it at all – this is a New Moon. Learn the 4 phases moon with free interactive flashcards.

The number of days counted from the time of the new moon is the Moon's "age". Waxing Gibbous Moon. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Moon is observed from a perspective inverted, or rotated 180°, to that of the Northern and to all of the images in this article, so that the opposite sides appear to wax or wane. 4. Between these major phases, there are 4 minor ones: the Waxing Crescent, Waxing Gibbous, Waning Gibbous and Waning Crescent. The moon is shown at 8 key stages during its revolution around the earth. But in reality, the observers are on the surface of the rotating Earth, so someone who sees the Moon on the eastern horizon at one moment sees it on the western horizon about 12 hours later. The approximate age of the Moon, and hence the approximate phase, can be calculated for any date by calculating the number of days since a known new moon (such as January 1, 1900 or August 11, 1999) and reducing this modulo 29.530588853 (the length of a synodic month). The longest duration between full moon to new moon (or new moon to full moon) lasts about 15 days and 14.5 hours, while the shortest duration between full moon to new moon (or new moon to full moon) lasts only about 13 days and 22.5 hours. Each lunar month begins with a new moon, followed three or four nights later by a waxing crescent (waxing means getting larger). During this phase happens when you can see half of the moon that is illuminated. I’m pretty sure that (from Earth) only the leftmost side of a 1st quarter moon is going to be illuminated regardless of ones location on the planet. Question 25 (4 points) Darth 4 Diagram of the moon phases as viewed from outer space a. Let’s take a look at the phases of the Moon…. We typically cannot see a new moon since the dark side of the moon is facing the Earth. When the Moon seems like it’s getting bigger, it is said to be waxing. “This amount changes over the course of a lunar month, which lasts about 29.5 days, according to the relative positions of the Earth, moon and sun in the sky.”. 6. This means that an observer on Earth who sees the Moon when it is close to the eastern horizon sees it from an angle that is about 2 degrees different from the line of sight of an observer who sees the Moon on the western horizon.
About seven nights after the new moon, we see half of the moon’s disk — a phase called the first quarter. The moon will get more and more illuminated until the moon is fully illuminated, which starts the next phase. It’s sorta unbelievable just how large it can be when it’s closest to our earth & then where it is, like it is on this night, being so small. During the Waxing Crescent phase, the moon travels east in the sky.