y can u only see half of the moon sometimes?

Answer 1

during certian days of the month, light given off by the moon is blocked by the earth so that only some reaches the moon and can be reflected off it

Answer 2

the moon rotates once for every time it orbits the earth. the result of this is that only one side of the moon ever faces the earth. pink floyd made an album about the other side of the moon. until a spacecraft orbited the moon, the opposite side (the dark side) had never been seen. when you see a full moon, you are seeing 1/2 the moon's surface.

when the moon is 1/2 full, you are seeing 1/4 of the moon surface. the other 1/4 that would otherwise be viewable is obscured by the shadow of the earth cast on the moon by the sun.

the first link is a java-app that allows you to see the relative positions of the sun, earth, and moon at any point during the cycle. the second link is an animation that shows the moon waxing and waning.

hope this helps.

Answer 3

From any location on the Earth, the Moon appears to be a circular disk which, at any specific time, is illuminated to some degree by direct sunlight. Like the Earth, the Moon is a sphere which is always half illuminated by the Sun, but as the Moon orbits the Earth we get to see more or less of the illuminated half. During each lunar orbit (a lunar month), we see the Moon's appearance change from not visibly illuminated through partially illuminated to fully illuminated, then back through partially illuminated to not illuminated again. Although this cycle is a continuous process, there are eight distinct, traditionally recognized stages, called phases. The phases designate both the degree to which the Moon is illuminated and the geometric appearance of the illuminated part. These phases of the Moon, in the sequence of their occurrence (starting from New Moon), are listed below.

Answer 4

The moon is always exactly half lit up, the half that faces the Sun. You also always see exactly half of the moon, the half that faces the Earth.

When the half that faces the Sun is the same as the half that faces the Earth, you see a "full" moon.

When you see something less than a full moon, you are seeing the intersection of the half of the moon that faces the sun and the half of the moon that faces the Earth.

Answer 5

We can only see only ona half of the moon. The moon never rotates in front to the earth so the other half is allways hiden.
On the other side, an answering your question, if the sun only illuminates one half of the moon we can see only one half of the face of teh moon.
If you are far from illuminated cities or any ligth it will be possible to see the non illuminated part as a dark shadow

Answer 6

half a moon is a phase of the moon. This changes by the alignment of the earth and sun to the moon.

A good way of testing this is by taking a light and 2 tennis balls. the light is the sun, the first tennis ball is the earth and the second tennis ball is the moon. When you rotate the moon tennis ball around the earth tennis ball it will cast different shadows onto the moon.

Answer 7

no you do not see half the moon some times, you only see half the moon all the time because the other half that we do not see is covered by earths shadow and the direction the sun is facing in .

Answer 8

It's the moon's position in relation to the sun. A full moon is when the moon is in full view of the sunlight. A quarter moon is when only half the light is shining on the moon (it's quarter to us b/c we only see half of the moon to begin with).

Didn't Barney teach you anything! LOL!

Answer 9

you see as earth revolves about sun moon revolves about earth this movements are not in phase so at times we can see both the day and night par of moon that is when you see the half moon when you see the full moon you see only the day part and when you don't see the moon you see the night part.

Answer 10

"seeing" the moon is actually seeing sunlight reflected off of the moon. Depending on where the moon is in correlation to your location and where the sun is in correlation to it determines what parts of the moon you can see.
P.S. all the rest of the people answering this question are complete dumbasses.

Answer 11

moon phases are due to the position of the sun relative to the moon so you only see half because of the position of the sun