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Phases of Moon
The Moon produces no visible light of its own
The illuminated part of the Moon gradually transitions between these phases.
Such as: c rescent, gibbous, waxing, and waning. Crescent refers to phases
where the Moon is less than half-illuminated, while gibbous means more than
half is illuminated. Waxing means “growing” or expanding in illumination, and
waning means “shrinking” or decreasing in illumination.
After new Moon, a slice of reflected sunlight becomes visible as a waxing
crescent. The lunar crescent grows until first-quarter Moon. As the sunlit portion
of the Moon continues to increase to more than half of the Moon’s face, the
Moon turns waxing gibbous. Then, after the full Moon the sunlit fraction begins
to decrease again (though it still takes up more than half the face of the Moon)
to make a waning gibbous and then a third-quarter Moon. The slice of sunlight
continues to decrease until the moon is waning crescent and then a new Moon.
The whole cycle (from new Moon to new Moon) takes about 29.5 days.