The Moon is a spherical body that is illuminated by the Sun and reflects some of its light. But how is the Moon placed in relation to the Sun and the Earth, and how does it move?
We know that:
Figure R4.1 will help you to make sense of how the Moon moves around the Earth. It shows how we only see different-sized portions of the Moon at different stages in its orbit. It shows how the phases of the moon arise from its orbit around the Earth. The time between occurrences of the same phase (e.g. full) is, on average, 29.5 days.
You will see that the moon always presents the same face to the Earth: the moon rotates on its axis in the same time that it orbits the Earth, and in the same direction. Moreover, whenever you see a full moon, everyone else on the same side of the Earth will also see a full moon. This applies to a new moon and to every other phase of the Moon as well. The
Please note: You will need to reverse the sequence in the diagram for the southern hemisphere.
OpenLearn - Observing patterns: shadows and night & day Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.