What are the Phases of the Moon?

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What are the Phases of the Moon?
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The Three Basic Phases of the Moon

• Full
• New
• Quarter

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The Full Moon

• The lighted side of the Moon faces the Earth.
  This means that the Earth, Sun, and Moon are
  nearly in a straight line, with the Earth in the
  middle.
• The Moon that we see is very bright from the
  sunlight reflecting off it.

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• The lighted side of the Moon faces away from the
  Earth.
• This means that the Sun, Earth, and Moon are
  almost in a straight line, with the Moon in
  between the Sun and the Earth. The Moon that we
  see looks very dark.

The New Moon
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First Quarter Moon

• The right half of the Moon appears lighted and
  the left side of the Moon appears dark.

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First Quarter Moon

• During the time between the New Moon and the
  First Quarter Moon, the part of the Moon that
  appears lighted gets larger and larger every day,
  and will continue to grow until the Full Moon.

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Third Quarter Moon

• The left half of the Moon appears lighted, and
  the right side of the Moon appears dark.

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• During the time between the Full Moon and the
  Last Quarter Moon, the part of the Moon that
  appears lighted gets smaller and smaller every
  day.

Third Quarter
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The Other Phases of the Moon
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Look at the way light travels across the face of
the moon.

• It goes from right to left.
• This is a very important thing to remember when
  you are identifying the phase of the moon. It
  will determine whether the moon is in its Waxing
  or Waning phases.

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OR
We can say it goes that way!
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Waxing and Waning

• Waxing - Means to increase in size or to grow
  larger.
• In terms of the lunar phases it means that the
  light is growing larger across the face of the
  moon

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Waxing and Waning

• Waning - Means to decrease in size or to grow
  smaller
• In terms of the lunar phases it means that the
  light is growing smaller across the face of the
  moon

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• This phase is known as a Waxing Crescent.
• Just the extreme right side of the moon can be
  seen.
• This Moon can be seen after the New Moon, but
  before the First Quarter Moon.

The Waxing Crescent
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• This phase is known as a Waxing Gibbous.
• This Moon can be seen after the First Quarter
  Moon, but before the Full Moon.
• The amount of the Moon that we can see will grow
  larger and larger every day.

The Waxing Gibbous
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• This phase is called a Waning Gibbous.
• This Moon can be seen after the Full Moon, but
  before the Last Quarter Moon.
• The amount of the Moon that we can see will grow
  smaller and smaller every day

The Waning Gibbous
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• This phase is called the Waning Crescent.
• This Moon can be seen after the Last Quarter Moon
  and before the New Moon.
• The crescent will grow smaller and smaller every
  day, until the Moon looks like the New Moon.

The Waning Crescent
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Lets put all of the Lunar Phases together, how we
would see the moon looking up from the earth.
It takes 29 and 1/4 days for the moon to travel
around our planet once
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This is how the moon would look from outer space.
H
F
G
A
E
C
B
D
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Note the light doesnt change across the face of
the moon. What changes is what part of the moon
we see from the surface of the earth.
H
F
G
A
E
C
B
D
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POP QUIZ

• Use your notes and identify the following phases
  of the moon

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1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
Hint Look at the way the light is traveling
across the moon which one is first after the new
moon.