New Moon A new moon occurs when the moon is at its closest point to the sun in its orbit around Earth. From our perspective, it's invisible because the side of the moon illuminated by the sun faces directly away from us. This means there's no moonlight reflected to Earth for us to...
When it comes to objects in the night sky, no object is quite as important as the moon. The observations of its phases not only gave rise to the month as a unit of time, but the word "moon" is the root of the word for "month." Given the importance of the cycles of the moon, ...