Lunar Phases
The phase when the Moon appears as a thin, curved sliver.
What is crescent?
The force that keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth.
What is gravity?
You should never do this during a solar eclipse without special eye protection.
What is looking at the sun directly?
The season that begins in the Northern Hemisphere at the September equinox.
What is Fall (autumn)?
The term for when the lit portion of the Moon we see is shrinking each night.
What is Waning?
The unit used to measure force, named after a famous scientist.
What is a Newton?
The Moon phase that is required for a lunar eclipse to happen.
What is a full moon?
The imaginary line around the middle of Earth that receives strong, direct sunlight all year.
What is the equator?
The phase about one week after the new moon, when the right half of the Moon appears lit.
What is the first quarter?
According to Newton's second law, if the same force pushes two objects, the one with more of this accelerates less.
The lighter, outer part of a shadow, where only a partial eclipse is seen.
What is the penumbra?
The day around December 21 when the Northern Hemisphere gets its fewest hours of daylight.
What is the winter solstice?
During a full moon, this object sits between the Sun and the Moon.
What is the Full Moon?
The Moon's gravity pulling on Earth's oceans causes this daily rise and fall of sea level.
What are the tides?
What is a Partial Lunar Eclipse?
Summer is warmer partly because sunlight strikes the ground at this kind of angle, concentrating its energy.
What is a more direct angle to the sunlight?
We always see the same side of the Moon because it does this exactly once for every orbit of Earth.
What is rotation?
A satellite in a circular orbit keeps changing direction, which means it is doing this even when its speed stays the same.
What is Accelerating?
The type of solar eclipse in which the Moon is too far from Earth to cover the Sun completely, leaving a "ring of fire."
What is the annular eclipse?
On the June solstice, the Tropic of Cancer gets this many hours of daylight.
What is 13.5 hours?