The moon and its phases
What is the Moon?
The Moon is a big round space rock orbits the Earth.
Key Points:
The Moon does not make its own light.
It reflects sunlight.
It takes about 27 days to go around Earth once.
It helps control ocean tides.
What Are Moon Phases?
Moon phases are the different shapes of the Moon we see from Earth.
The 8 Main Moon Phases
New Moon.
Waxing Crescent.
First Quarter.
Waxing Gibbous.
Full Moon.
Waning Gibbous.
Last Quarter.
Waning Crescent.
How was the Moon created?
Scientists think the Moon was made a very long time ago about 4.5 billion years ago.
The Giant Impact Theory
The most accepted idea is called the Giant Impact Theory.
What happened:
Early Earth was still very hot and forming.
A huge space object about the size of Mars crashed into Earth.
The crash was extremely powerful.
Pieces of rock flew into space.
Those pieces slowly came together.
They formed the Moon.
What was that space object?
Scientists call it Theia.
It doesn’t exist anymore because it smashed into Earth.
Fun Fact:
The Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth around 3–4 cm per year.