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We break up the moon's orbit into phases. When the sun and the moon are on the same side of Earth, the sun lights the side of the moon that faces away from Earth. We don't see any sunlight on its front face, so it looks like there is no moon. We call this the new moon phase. Next, the crescent moon begins to show. You may see some faint light of the moon.
As the new moon phase ends, the moon waxes, or appears to grow larger. Then, we see more of the moon's face. The lighted area grows over time from right to left from our view. We see only a thin bright curve. It is called the waxing crescent. Over the next seven days, we see the sunlight spread to cover the right half of the moon. This is called the first quarter. The visible part of the moon grows through the gibbous phase over the next seven days.
When the moon and sun are on opposite sides of Earth and all are in a line, the sun shines past Earth directly onto the full face of the moon. Then, we see a "full moon."
As the cycle goes on, we say the moon is waning, or growing smaller. Then, the amount of lighted area we see decreases, and the darkened area increases from right to left. You can tell if the moon is waxing or waning by whether the right side of the moon is dark or light.
Another 14 days pass as the moon moves through the waning gibbous phase, then the third quarter, then the waning crescent phase, and seems to disappear in the new moon phase. Now, we're back to where we started about a month ago!
The text organization in this passage is an example of
A. similarity and difference.
B. chronological order.
C. question and answer.
D. cause and effect.
What is
B. chronological order.