Astronomy assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Astronomy assignment - Essay Example It is a fact that moon does not produce its own light but only acts as a reflector of the sun’s lights. One can observe different parts of illuminated moon by the sun as it moves around the sun. This is the reason why the moon changes its shape in time and regularly. This observations where moon changes its shape in time is called the phases of the moon. As the moon moves around the earth, its one side is illuminated and changes in time from dark to fully lit and henceforth. When the moon is fully lit, it’s said to be in lunar phase (Pamela, 1996, Web) where one observes a full moon on the side facing the earth. This phase only appears when the earth positions itself between the sun and the moon where the moon reflects the lights of the sun directly to the earth. The moon the enters the quarter moon phase in about a week later and is seen as half since the visible lit portion is half by somebody on earth. When the moon moves between the earth and sun, one observing it from the earth sees a complete dark surface since at this time it’s reflecting the lights back to the sun. The complete darkness is seen at different parts since the moon itself is not transparent and blocks the lights from the sun. Although some of the lights surpasses it and directly hit the earth as the moon is smaller than the size in terms of size. This occurrences is called the new moon phase. Before and after the quarter phases of the moon, there are crescent and gibbous phases. In crescent phase, the moon surface as reflected on earth is less than half lit. Whilst in gibbous phase, the moon surface viewed on earth is more that half, but not full lit. The moon’s revolution around the earth makes it to appear like it is changing its shape. But the fact is that, it is caused by the different angles by which, it is observed on its lit-surfaced side. As