Moon
The Moon does not make its own light. It glows because it reflects sunlight. We see the part of the Moon that is lit by the Sun, and that lit piece changes as the Moon orbits Earth.
On this page: why the Moon glows, why the shape changes, whether there is a dark side, and why we see one face.
Read the answer below. In Giant, kids talk with characters and keep the adventure going.
Moon
The Moon is a rocky world. It has no glowing furnace like a star. Sunlight hits gray dust and old lava plains and bounces toward your eyes. That bounce is the glow. The Moon is actually fairly dark as rocks go. It still looks bright at night because the sky around it is darker, and because it is close. During the day you can sometimes see it too. Same bounce. Brighter background.
0
Light the Moon makes
~12%
Sunlight bounced back
~27 days
Orbit around Earth
1 face
The side we see
The Moon is always a ball. The Sun lights half of it at a time, like a beach ball in a flashlight. As the Moon travels around Earth, we see different amounts of that bright half. New moon is the dark-to-us start. Crescent, half, gibbous, and full are stops on the way. The dark bite is just the unlit side from our seat. Nothing is eating the Moon.
Both sides get sunlight over a month. There is a far side we do not see from Earth, and there is a night side that faces away from the Sun at any moment. Those are not the same thing. The far side is not permanently dark. People say "dark side" when they mean the hidden face. Sunlight still lands there.
The Moon is tidally locked. It spins once in the same time it takes to orbit Earth, about 27 days. That matching dance keeps the same face pointed at us. The far side stayed a mystery until spacecraft flew around. It is more cratered and has fewer dark lava seas. Same Moon. Different view.
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