Moon

Moon

1. What causes the moon to shine?

The moon doesn't shine by itself, the light from the sun is reflected off it.

2. Why does the moon appear to change shape during the course of a month?

The sunlight hits it at different angles. When the Sun is behind us the moon looks fuller, when the sun is off to the side you see about half the disk, with the Sun out beyond the Moon you see just a sliver or even less.

3. What is an eclipse?

An eclipse occurs when one object gets in between you and another object and blocks your view. From Earth, we routinely experience two kinds of eclipses, an eclipse of the Moon and an eclipse of the Sun.

4. How is a solar eclipse different than a lunar eclipse?

A lunar eclipse occurs at night and a solar eclipse occurs during the day. There are only certain times when either of them can occur. A lunar eclipse can only occur when the moon is directly opposite the Sun in the sky/a full moon. Even though there is a full moon each month, obviously a lunar eclipse does not occur on a monthly basis because the Sun isn't exactly in line with the Earth and the moon. The moon's orbit is actually tilted 5 degrees more than that of the Earth. Otherwise, we would see a lunar eclipse each month.

5. Why isn’t there a solar eclipse and a Lunar eclipse each month?

The reason for why we don't have solar and lunar eclipses every month is because the Earth and moon's orbit, or revolution, is always tilted 5 degrees in some direction, meaning up or down, and so, the Sun, Moon, and Earth are not aligned. When aligned, it causes a solar or lunar eclipse.

6. What causes the tides?

The moon's gravitational force pulls on water in the oceans so that there are "bulges" in the ocean on both sides of the planet. The moon pulls water toward it, and this causes the bulge toward the moon. The bulge on the side of the Earth opposite the moon is caused by the moon "pulling the Earth away" from the water on that side.