We all experience day and night and every night when the sun goes down, we have a different form of light. The moon orbits the Earth, like the Earth orbits the sun. The moon we see only orbits around Earth. As the moon orbits our planet, we see that the shape of the moon changes throughout each month. This is because the amount of light that the sun that illuminates the moon changes monthly. These are called the phases of the moon. The phases of the moon are the changes in amount of moon illuminated by the sun as viewed from Earth. The moon is visible to us on Earth because the sun reflects light off of the sun, which is shown to us on Earth. There are eight phases of the moon that we see every month (“Understanding Moon Phases”, n.d.). Every
