The moon goes through 8 major phases.

A new moon is when the Moon cannot be seen because we are looking at the unlit half of the Moon. The new moon phase
occurs when the Moon is directly between the Earth and Sun. A solar eclipse can only happen at new moon.

 A waxing crescent moon is when the Moon looks like crescent and the crescent increases ("waxes") in
size from one day to the next. This phase is usually only seen in the west.
 The first quarter moon (or a half moon) is when half of the lit portion of the Moon is visible after
the waxing crescent phase. It comes a week after new moon.
 A waxing gibbous moon occurs when more than half of the lit portion of the Moon can be seen and the
shape increases ("waxes") in size from one day to the next. The waxing gibbous phase occurs between the first quarter and
full moon phases.
 A full moon is when we can see the entire lit portion of the Moon. The full moon phase occurs when the
Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, called opposition. A lunar eclipse can only happen at full moon.
 A waning gibbous moon occurs when more than half of the lit portion of the Moon can be seen and the
shape decreases ("wanes") in size from one day to the next. The waning gibbous phase occurs between the full moon and
third quarter phases.
 The last quarter moon (or a half moon) is when half of the lit portion of the Moon is visible after
the waning gibbous phase.
 A waning crescent moon is when the Moon looks like the crescent and the crescent decreases ("wanes")
in size from one day to the next.

BIRTH OF A STAR

Stars are born within the clouds of dust and scattered throughout most galaxies. A familiar example of such as a dust cloud
is the Orion Nebula. Turbulence deep within these clouds gives rise to knots with sufficient mass that the gas and dust can
begin to collapse under its own gravitational attraction.

LIGHTS OF STARS

Astrophysicist and NPR commentator on what the latest research on the existence and trajectories of alien civilizations may
teach us about our own. Light of the Stars tells the story of humanity's coming of age as we awaken to the possibilities of life
on other worlds and their sudden relevance to our fate on Earth.

DEATH OF STARS
Most stars take millions of years to die. When a star like the Sun has burned all of its hydrogen fuel, it expands to become a
red giant. This may be millions of kilometres across - big enough to swallow the planets Mercury and Venus.After puffing off
its outer layers, the star collapses to form a very dense white dwarf. One teaspoon of material from a white dwarf would
weigh up to 100 tonnes. Over billions of years, the white dwarf cools and becomes invisible.Stars heavier than eight times
the mass of the Sun end their lives very suddenly. When they run out of fuel, they swell into red supergiants. They try to keep
alive by burning different fuels, but this only works for a few million years. Then they blow themselves apart in a huge
supernova explosion.For a week or so, the supernova outshines all of the other stars in its galaxy. Then it quickly fades. All
that is left is a tiny, dense object – a neutron star or a black hole – surrounded by an expanding cloud of very hot gas.The
elements made inside the supergiant are scattered through space. This stardust eventually makes other stars and planets.

BLACK HOLE
 A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing—no particles or even
electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently
compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole.

HISTORY OF EARTH

The history of Earth concerns the development of planet Earth from its formation to the present day Nearly all branches
of natural science have contributed to understanding of the main events of Earth's past, characterized by
constant geological change and biological evolution.
The geological time scale (GTS), as defined by international convention,[3] depicts the large spans of time from the
beginning of the Earth to the present, and its divisions chronicle some definitive events of Earth history. (In the
graphic: Ga means "billion years ago"; Ma, "million years ago".) Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago, approximately
one-third the age of the universe, by accretion from the solar nebulaVolcanic outgassing probably created the
primordial atmosphere and then the ocean, but the early atmosphere contained almost no oxygen. Much of the Earth was
molten because of frequent collisions with other bodies which led to extreme volcanism. While the Earth was in its earliest
stage (Early Earth), a giant impact collision with a planet-sized body named Theia is thought to have formed the Moon. Over
time, the Earth cooled, causing the formation of a solid crust, and allowing liquid water on the surface.
The Hadean eon represents the time before a reliable (fossil) record of life; it began with the formation of the planet and
ended 4.0 billion years ago. The following Archean and Proterozoic eons produced the beginnings of life on Earth and
its earliest evolution. The succeeding eon is the Phanerozoic, divided into three eras: the Palaeozoic, an era of arthropods,
fishes, and the first life on land; the Mesozoic, which spanned the rise, reign, and climactic extinction of the non-avian
dinosaurs; and the Cenozoic, which saw the rise of mammals. Recognizable humans emerged at most 2 million years ago, a
vanishingly small period on the geological scale.
The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates at least from 3.5 billion years ago during the Eoarchean Era, after a
geological crust started to solidify following the earlier molten Hadean Eon. There are microbial mat fossils such
as stromatolites found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia Other early physical evidence of
a biogenic substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in southwestern Greenland as well
as "remains of biotic life" found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia.  According to one of the researchers, "If life
arose relatively quickly on Earth … then it could be common in the universe."
Photosynthetic organisms appeared between 3.2 and 2.4 billion years ago and began enriching the atmosphere with
oxygen. Life remained mostly small and microscopic until about 580 million years ago, when complex multicellular life arose,
developed over time, and culminated in the Cambrian Explosion about 541 million years ago. This sudden diversification of
life forms produced most of the major phyla known today, and divided the Proterozoic Eon from the Cambrian Period of the
Paleozoic Era. It is estimated that 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth, over five billion, have
gone extinct. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million of which about 1.2 million
are documented, but over 86 percent have not been described.However, it was recently claimed that 1 trillion species
currently live on Earth, with only one-thousandth of one percent described.
The Earth's crust has constantly changed since its formation, as has life since its first appearance. Species continue
to evolve, taking on new forms, splitting into daughter species, or going extinct in the face of ever-changing physical
environments. The process of plate tectonics continues to shape the Earth's continents and oceans and the life they harbor.
Human activity is now a dominant force affecting global change, harming the biosphere, the Earth's surface, hydrosphere,
and atmosphere with the loss of wild lands, over-exploitation of the oceans, production of greenhouse gases, degradation of
the ozone layer, and general degradation of soil, air, and water quality.
Continental drift theory
Continental drift is the theory that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing
to have "drifted" across the ocean bed.] The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham
Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was
rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle convection for that mechanism. The
idea of continental drift has since been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, which explains that the continents move by
riding on plates of the Earth's lithosphere