The Moon and Its Phases Essay

Moon’s Illumination and Changing Phases

Moon is just like the world in space, and it’s always half illuminated by sunlight and half of it is daytime and the other night. As the moon goes around the earth, we see different fractions of its day and night. This is because of the moon’s movement around the globe, which makes the illumination from the sun have a difference. This makes the changing phases or appearance of the moon we see in the sky. The second observation was that there is a change in position of the moon even though it is a small difference. One had to wait a little longer for the moon to be exactly where it was the previous day. The stars remained at their exact points meaning they only seem to be moving, but in the real sense, they are not moving, meaning there was another reason for the moon’s displacement.

Moon’s Movement and its Orbit

The movement of the moon was because of its movement around the earth in its orbit that takes about a month for a complete one round. Its movement though is a bit complex being that it looks to be moving around the earth once a day though it moves around the earth once in a month. This whole scenario is what brings the difference in position of the moon when observed consecutively from the same point, same time and but different days. Movement of the moon around the globe is approximately 27.3 days per rotation. From the fingers estimation, in the 360 degrees of a circle, 13.2 or 27.3 out of the 360 is what the moon covers in a single day relative to the stars. This as well means that the moon covers approximately half a degree per hour. This means the moon moves about a hand width towards the east in 24 hours and about a diameter in one hour. This comes down to about 13.2 degrees per day and 92 degrees in a week.