Moon Phases
Jesus Magallon
Why are quarters waxing or waning?
Waxing; Means to increase in apparent size.
Waning; Means to decrease in size
When you see waxing ie. Cresent/ Gibbous, it means the light is increasing. It increases from right to left until the whole moon is lit up. After it's all lit the moons light begins to decrease from left to right until the moon is completely dark
The Moon from Earth as opposed to The I.S.S
We can observer all the phases of the moon from Earth. We see it go from Full to New, but what exactly does it look like from up above? Well it's quite easy, it all just depends on position and the amount of sunlight that hits the moon. let's say the moon is blocking the sun from the I.S.S it would appear as a New Moon type phase. The international space station is only about 400k kilometers above ground level, so it's not seeing much more than Earth. The I.S.S orbits the Earth much like the Moon
First Quarter
- 50% of the right side of the moon is lit.
- Occurs after Waxing Crescent and before Waxing Gibbous
Third Quarter
- 50% of the left side of the moon is lit.
- Occurs after Waning Gibbous and before Waning Cresent
Moon Phases
Although the First Quarter and the Third Quarter look very similar, they're actually quite opposite. They are in the same location when they occur but it's flipped. So the Sun still shines the same side of the moon, but it looks different because the location of Earth and how we see the moon.