What are lunar cycles?

Lunar cycles are how the moon changes shape from night to night, like a puzzle piece that shifts every few days.

Imagine you have a flashlight and a ball. When you turn on the flashlight and shine it on the ball, only part of it is lit up, just like the moon. The moon goes through different shapes because we see different parts of it lit by the sun. Sometimes it looks like a full circle (a full moon), sometimes like a half-circle (first quarter, last quarter), and sometimes even like a sliver (new moon).

The moon is constantly moving around Earth, and as it does, we see different amounts of its lit side. It takes about 29 days for the moon to go all the way around Earth, that’s one full lunar cycle!

You can think of it like a dance between the sun, Earth, and the moon. Sometimes the moon is on the same side as the sun (a new moon), and sometimes it's on the opposite side (a full moon). This dance creates all the cool shapes we see in the night sky!