Witchbook

The Moon

MOON PHASES

As the Moon orbits around Earth and Earth orbits around the Sun, the angle between the Sun, Moon, and Earth changes. As a result, the amount of sunlight that reflects off the Moon and travels to our eyes changes every day. (The Moon itself produces no light of its own.)We see the Moon’s disk change from all dark to all light to all dark again: This span of time is called a lunar cycle, lunation, lunar month, or synodic month. The length of the cycle can vary slightly, but on average, it is 29.53059 days.

Astronomers have broken down this cycle into four primary moon phases: New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, and Last (third) Quarter.

There are also four secondary phases: Waxing Crescent, Waxing Gibbous, Waning Gibbous, and Waning Crescent.