Why can you sometimes only see part of the moon?

Question

Something must be blocking it. It can't be the sun, or you would see that shining.

Answer 1

Simply put, you only see the part that the sun is shining on.
The rest is dark, so you can't see it.
There is nothing blocking it.

Answer 2

The earth's shadow is blocking the light. An easy experiment is to put a light source, like a lamp without the shade, in the center of a room. Take an orange and hold it up between you and the light source and make a circle around the light source. You will see it is all dark when your shadow is covering it, becoming a crescent as you move around the circle, and eventually being completely lit up when the angle between you and the light source is such that you are not blocking the direct light. As you know, the moon is reflected sunlight, and sometimes the earth is between the moon and the light source. All inner planets display this crescent characteristic. The outer planets, from Mars on outwards, do not, because the earth does not get in between, the planets are outside of the earth's orbit around the sun. Venus through a telescope will show you its crescent, as will Mercury, although Mercury is hard to see because it is so close to the rising sun. Mercury can mostly be seen in the early morning hours, at dawn, and even then you have to be careful not to accidentally get the sun - that could cause blindness.

Answer 3

Because of the moon's synchronous rotation we only see one side of it but because it is orbiting around the Earth too the sun shines on different parts of it as it orbits. So during a new moon the moon is between the Earth and the sun so we can't see the side the sun is shining on and during full moon the Earth is between the moon and sun and we can see the side its shining on completely. The positions in between give us the phases.

Answer 4

This is called the phase of the moon. It is caused by the position of the sun. When we see the moon lit on just the right side, it is because the sun is shining on it from 90 degrees to our right. Watch the phases over a period of a month and you will see that as the moon falls a little farther back every day (with respect to the sun) it becomes more and more fully lit. Then when it is directly opposite us from the sun, it is fully lit. Then it goes through the waning phases as it moves eastward, a little closer toward our line of sight to the sun, every day. Then when it is between us and the sun, we can't see it at all.

Answer 5

The moon has to revolve a couple of times around the world a until it can become a full moon that's why full moons are so important. You should have learned this in 5th grade I'm only ten this is ridiculous. Sometimes it's the clouds. Sometimes it could be part of the sun blocking the moon or an asteroid in space.

Answer 6

it happens to be that the sun as a light source shines on it from just one side.
Now the moon is rotating around earth, and sometimes its in front of us, sometimes its behind earth

You may figure if you put a torchlight on a tennisball at night and step behind it. you will see the same like you see happening with the moon

Answer 7

because of the earth's rotation, sometimes it blocks more than other times.