DID YOU KNOW? The Moon is moving away from Earth by 3.8cm (1.5in) a year.

It was 22,530km (14,000mi) away when it formed

THE SUN

New Moon
When the near side is
completely in night time, with
the far side in day time, we
call it a New Moon
Phases of the Moon
Our companion in space, the Moon plays an
important part in some interesting phenomena

Phases Eclipse
As the Moon pirouettes on its axis and When the Moon moves into Earth’s shadow,
dances around the Earth on its orbit, a lunar the Moon becomes eclipsed and turns dark,
day lasts almost as long as an Earth month. sometimes blood red. When Earth moves into
Because the Moon always shows the same the shadow of the Moon, the Sun is eclipsed
face to us, we see nighttime slowly creep and day turns to night for a few minutes. A
across the Moon’s face, causing the partial solar eclipse occurs when only part of
changing phases of the Moon the Moon drifts in front of the Sun

NEW MOON WANING

WAXING
WANING CRESCENT
NEW MOON CRESCENT
CRESCENT Combined
gravitational
pull of the Sun
and the Moon High tide
Sunlit part
of the Moon Low tide
not visible The Moon’s
from Earth gravitational
pull affects
tides on Earth

WAXING LAST QUARTER

CRESCENT

FIRST High tide LAST

QUARTER Low tide QUARTER
No sunlight

Sunlit part of the

Moon visible
from Earth

FIRST QUARTER WANING

FULL MOON
GIBBOUS
WAXING WANING
GIBBOUS GIBBOUS
Full Moon
When the near side is
fully in daylight, we
Tides Orbit say the Moon is full
Ever wondered why the tide is in while at Our natural satellite takes around 27.3
other times it’s out? It’s all to do with the days to complete one lap around our
gravity of the Moon as it moves around the planet, orbiting at a speed of around
Earth, as well as the Sun. Our lunar 1km/s (0.62mi/s). The Moon is at an
WAXING FULL MOON
© Credit

companion’s gravity pulls the large bodies of average distance of around 385,000km
GIBBOUS water toward it, generating two tides per day (238,900mi) from the Earth’s centre

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