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The Moon then wanes as it passes through the gibbous moon, third-quarter moon, and crescent moon phases, before returning back to new moon. The terms old moon and new moon are not interchangeable. The "old moon" is a waning sliver (which eventually becomes undetectable to the naked eye) until the moment it aligns with the Sun and begins to wax ...
Think of the phases labeled "new moon," "first quarter," "full moon," and "third quarter" as the numbers 12, 9, 6, and 3 on a clock, respectively. (For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the ...
A full moon sinking behind San Gorgonio Mountain, California, on a midsummer morning. Moonrise and moonset are times when the upper limb of the Moon appears above the horizon and disappears below it, respectively. The exact times depend on the lunar phase and declination, as well as the observer's location.
Contrary to popular belief, the Moon should ideally not be viewed at its full phase. During a full moon, rays of sunlight are hitting the visible portion of the Moon perpendicular to the surface. As a result, there is less surface detail visible during a full moon than during other phases (such as the quarter and crescent phases) when sunlight ...
Due to tidal locking, the same hemisphere of the Moon always faces the Earth and thus the length of a lunar day (sunrise to sunrise on the Moon) equals the time that the Moon takes to complete one orbit around Earth, returning to the same lunar phase. While the Moon is orbiting Earth, Earth is progressing in its orbit around the Sun.
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite.It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth.
In lunar astronomy, libration is the cyclic variation in the apparent position of the Moon perceived by Earth-bound observers and caused by changes between the orbital and rotational planes of the moon. It causes an observer to see slightly different hemispheres of the surface at different times.
The far side of the Moon provides a good environment for radio astronomy as interferences from the Earth are blocked by the Moon. In February 2020, Chinese astronomers reported, for the first time, a high-resolution image of a lunar ejecta sequence , as well as direct analysis of its internal architecture.