What makes the moon cycles

What is the dark side of the Moon? In spite of the phrase, there actually is no dark side of the Moon! Just like Earth, our Moon rotates on its own axis and experiences daylight and dark cycles.

Our Moon's day and night cycles are a little longer than Earth's — the Moon spins on its axis once every Our Moon's period of rotation matches the time of revolution around Earth. In other words, it takes our Moon the same length of time to turn once on its axis as it takes it to go once completely around the Earth!

Do other planets have moons? Several of the planets in our solar system have natural satellites that orbit them. Some are so recently discovered that they have not yet been named. Mars has Phobos and Deimos, two small moons that circle very close to the martian surface. Jupiter has more known satellites than any other planet — 61!

Saturn has at least 31 satellites, Uranus has 27, and Neptune has 13 — and more are being discovered all the time! Pluto has one moon — Charon — the largest moon with respect to the size of the planet it revolves around. Only Mercury and Venus do not have any known satellites. Satellites are not restricted to planets; tiny Dactyl was discovered orbiting the asteroid Ida in ! LPI Education. Why does our Moon's shape change? Nearside view of Earth's Moon as seen by the Galileo Spacecraft. In , two holidays happen on the same day.

Here's another fascinating article that explores this topic. A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. Because there are about twelve lunations synodic months in a solar year, this period Without a system of keeping track of time, it would be so easy to lose it -- to lose time that is. Where did time-telling come from?

What are time zones and why are there so many of them? Get the answers to these questions and more in this journey through the history of time -- from sundials to hourglasses to modern clocks. Or maybe you live in Mountain Standard Time or one of the other standardized time zones.

But these time zones have not always been around. In fact, it's a fairly recent development. William Heuisler explains the history of time and how trains changed everything. What if time didn't matter. What if you could travel backwards and forwards and through time -- time travel.

Then, time wouldn't really matter, right? Or would it? Also, I have often wondered why it's dark at night. I suppose, there are times when the moon just wouldn't look as beautiful unless it were set in a dark night sky. To learn why it's dark outside at night, check this out. Next Section ».

Then head outside about an hour before sunset, or around the time of a first-quarter Moon. Find the Moon in the southern part of the sky, then hold the ball up at arm's length right beside it.

You'll see that the ball shows exactly the same phase as the Moon. The Sun illuminates both the ball and the Moon from the same direction, and you see them as partly sunlit and partly in shadow, their bright and dark portions mimicking each other perfectly. If the weather stays clear, you can repeat this observation on the next several afternoons. Each day the Moon's orbital motion has carried it farther east, and the sunlit portion of its disk has grown larger.

To sneak a preview of the Moon's appearance in the days to come, simply move the ball farther east. And, sure enough, a day or two before full Moon, the Moon hangs low in the eastern sky just before sunset and is almost completely illuminated. To find out what phase the Moon is tonight, try our Moon Phase calculator. Check out this table if you'd like to know an estimate of the moonrise and moonset for each phase.

Keep in mind that this is just an approximation meant to guide the casual observer, and there's no correction for daylight or summer time. The exact local time depends on a number of factors, including time zone, season, shape of horizon, atmospheric refraction, among other things.

By: Bob King November 10, Community Leaders: Notable Astronomers. By: Richard S. Wright Jr. November 9, October 19, People, Places, and Events. By: Diana Hannikainen October 15,