What causes the different phases of the moon ?

Question

What causes the different phases of the moon ?

Answer 1

The moon is illuminated because it reflects the light from the sun. However only the half of the moon facing the sun is lit up. Th side facing away from the sun is in darkness. How much of the moon we see from earth depends on the angle between the earth, moon and sun. As the moon orbits around the earth we see it grow from a thin crescent to a full disk (or full moon) and then shrink back to a thin crescent again before vanishing for a few days.

Answer 2

Ask a friend to help you do this...

In a dark room, ask your friend to shine a flashlight at a tennis ball you are holding out at arm's length. The flashlight represents the sun, you represent the earth and the ball represents the moon.

Be at opposite sides of the room to each other.

Holding the ball out, slowly turn yourself around a full circle. The bright part of the tennis ball will take on the same shape as you see when you look at the moon.  Any dark part of the tennis ball is the dark part of the moon.

Do this and you will see the answer to your question.

Answer 3

http://www.google.ca/search?q=phases+of+...

Answer 4

The Moon is round like a ball and the Sun is only lighting up one side of it. If you look at a ball that is dark on one half and bright on the other half from different sides, you will see the light half make the same shapes as the Moon's phases. And for the same reason. You can even see the dark part of the Moon when it is a very thin crescent. Right now the Moon is a fat crescent seen in the day time. As the days go by, it will get thinner as the moon moves east getting closer to the Sun. Then it will be seen as a thin crescent low in the East just before sunrise. If you aren't a morning person, wait a few more days until about 4th of July or a couple days after that. It will then be a really thin crescent low in the West just after sunset. You will see the dark part showing dimly when it gets dark enough. It is very pretty actually, so I recommend looking for it if you can.