moonth of phases . important words crescent: less than half of the moon visible to earth is lit...
TRANSCRIPT
Moonth of Phases
http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov
Important Words
• Crescent: less than half of the moon visible to Earth is lit
• Gibbous: more than half of the moon visible to Earth is lit
More Important Words
• Waxing: illuminated portion of the moon facing Earth is increasing
• Waxing is from the Old English weaxan meaning “to grow.”
• Wax on light (from new moon to full)
• Waning: illuminated portion of the moon facing Earth is decreasing
• Waning is from the Old English wanian meaning “to lesson”
• Wane off light (from full moon to new)
Still another important word
• Quarter Moon: Half of the moon facing the Earth is illuminated
But wait… if we see half the moon lit, was isn’t it called a half moon?
• This is because the moon is a quarter (or three quarters) through its cycle of phases (or we see a quarter of the entire moon lit…)
Your moon model data table should look like this!
Be SureTo Look At The #s
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/img/phases.gif
In your model what represented the Earth, the Sun and the Moon?
• Earth: You
• Sun: the lamp
• Moon: the Styrofoam ball on the stick
How much of the lighted part of the ball did you see when facing the
lamp?
• NONE!
Explain what happened to the illuminated portion of the moon
after each turn.
• The portion of the moon illuminated (lit) increased with each turn until the entire moon facing the Earth was illuminated. After this the portion of the moon illuminated decreased with each turn.
Whether you could see it or not, how much of the ball’s surface was
always lit by the lamp?• HALF OF THE
MOON IS ALWAYS ILLUMINATED BY THE SUN!
• We just do not always see all (or any) of this half here on Earth!
http://www.opencourse.info/astronomy
Why do we see different phases of the moon?
• The moon revolves around the Earth, so the relative positions of the Earth, moon and sun cause the phases
• The changing amount of the lit portion of the moon visible on Earth = Phases
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/
Why we have phases:
http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonphase/
What would happen if the model was not above head?
• Moon would be dark at full moon location – in your shadow
• Would be a lunar eclipse!
http://www.dkimages.com/
Moon Info
• It takes the same amount of time for the moon to rotate on its axis as it does to revolve around the Earth (27.3 days)
• This is why the Earth only sees one side of the moon – in order to see the other side you need to get on a space ship and go around the moon!
• There are 29.5 days from a new moon to the next new moon
Moon Info
• The lit part of the moon always points towards the sun.
• When waxing: light is on the right
• When waning: shadow is on the right
http://www.astro.virginia.edu
The moon rise, moon set• The time of the moon rise and set depends on its
phase• Rises in the East and sets in the West – due to
Earth’s rotation• Remember: moon rises about 50 min later each day
of the moon phase cycle (~ 25 to 75 mins)
• http://aa.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/aa_rstablew.pl
•
Phase Rise Time Midpoint in sky Set Time
New Sunrise Noon Sunset
1st quarter Noon Sunset Midnight
Full Sunset Midnight Sunrise
3rd quarter Midnight Sunrise Noon
Can you identify the phase?
Waxing Gibbous
Full
Waning Crescent
Waning Gibbous
New
Last (3rd) Quarter
First Quarter
Waxing Crescent