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39-573: Tamatea is the Māori term for the lunar phase equivalent to the European "first quarter". In the traditional calendar the 21st-24th nights after the full Moon are known as: Tamatea-āio, Tamatea-angana, Tamatea-kai-ariki, Tamatea Tuhāhā or Tamatea Whakapau. The term may also refer to: Lunar phase The appearance of the Moon (its phase) gradually changes over a lunar month as the relative orbital positions of

78-581: A calendar year. Most of these eclipses are partial; total eclipses of the Moon or Sun are less frequent. The phases are not caused by the Earth's shadow falling on the moon, as some people believe. Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator . For other planets in the Solar System , north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to

117-611: A counterclockwise pattern. Hurricanes and tropical storms (massive low-pressure systems) spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. The shadow of a sundial moves clockwise on latitudes north of the subsolar point and anticlockwise to the south. During the day at these latitudes, the Sun tends to rise to its maximum at a southerly position. Between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator,

156-431: A more elaborate calculation. Also, due to lunar libration it is not uncommon to see up to 101% of the full moon or even up to 5% of the lunar backside. The Earth subtends an angle of about two degrees when seen from the Moon. This means that an observer on Earth who sees the Moon when it is close to the eastern horizon sees it from an angle that is about 2 degrees different from the line of sight of an observer who sees

195-410: A two-dimensional shape as defined by the intersection of an ellipse and circle (in which the ellipse's major axis coincides with the circle's diameter). If the half-ellipse is convex with respect to the half-circle, then the shape will be gibbous (bulging outwards), whereas if the half-ellipse is concave with respect to the half-circle, then the shape will be a crescent . When a crescent moon occurs,

234-404: A year of thirteen lunar months every few years, or by restarting the count at the first new (or full) moon after the winter solstice . The Sumerian calendar is the first recorded to have used the former method; Chinese calendar uses the latter, despite delaying its start until the second or even third new moon after the solstice. The Hindu calendar , also a lunisolar calendar, further divides

273-461: Is bright enough to be easily visible from Earth. This phenomenon is called earthshine , sometimes picturesquely described as "the old moon in the new moon's arms" or "the new moon in the old moon's arms". Archaeologists have reconstructed methods of timekeeping that go back to prehistoric times, at least as old as the Neolithic . The natural units for timekeeping used by most historical societies are

312-476: Is the basis for the Gregorian calendar that is almost exclusively the civil calendar in use worldwide today. Each of the four intermediate phases lasts approximately seven days (7.38 days on average), but varies ±11.25% due to lunar apogee and perigee . The number of days counted from the time of the new moon is the Moon's "age". Each complete cycle of phases is called a " lunation ". The approximate age of

351-656: The March equinox (typically March 20 UTC), while summer is taken as the period from the June solstice through to the September equinox (typically on 23 September UTC). The dates vary each year due to the difference between the calendar year and the astronomical year . Within the Northern Hemisphere, oceanic currents can change the weather patterns that affect many factors within the north coast. Such events include El Niño–Southern Oscillation . Trade winds blow from east to west just above

390-460: The Northern temperate zone . The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally mild, rather than extreme hot or cold. However, a temperate climate can have very unpredictable weather. Tropical regions (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator, 0° latitude) are generally hot all year round and tend to experience a rainy season during the summer months, and a dry season during

429-491: The day , the solar year and the lunation . The first crescent of the new moon provides a clear and regular marker in time and pure lunar calendars (such as the Islamic Hijri calendar ) rely completely on this metric. The fact, however, that a year of twelve lunar months is ten or eleven days shorter than the solar year means that a lunar calendar drifts out of step with the seasons. Lunisolar calendars resolve this issue with

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468-517: The invariable plane of the Solar System as Earth's North Pole . Due to Earth's axial tilt of 23.439281°, there is a seasonal variation in the lengths of the day and night. There is also a seasonal variation in temperatures, which lags the variation in day and night. Conventionally, winter in the Northern Hemisphere is taken as the period from the December solstice (typically December 21 UTC ) to

507-566: The last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago. Earth is currently in an interglacial period of the Quaternary , called the Holocene . The glaciations that occurred during the glacial period covered many areas of the Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic is a region around the North Pole (90° latitude ). Its climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers. Precipitation mostly comes in

546-419: The "horns" of the crescent pointing up or down, respectively. When the Sun appears above the Moon in the sky, the crescent opens downward; when the Moon is above the Sun, the crescent opens upward . The crescent Moon is most clearly and brightly visible when the Sun is below the horizon, which implies that the Moon must be above the Sun, and the crescent must open upward. This is therefore the orientation in which

585-421: The Moon around Earth, and Earth around the Sun, shift. The visible side of the Moon is sunlit to varying extents, depending on the position of the Moon in its orbit, with the sunlit portion varying from 0% (at new moon) to nearly 100% (at full moon). There are four principal (primary, or major) lunar phases: the new moon , first quarter, full moon , and last quarter (also known as third or final quarter), when

624-453: The Moon on the western horizon . The Moon moves about 12 degrees around its orbit per day, so, if these observers were stationary, they would see the phases of the Moon at times that differ by about one-sixth of a day, or 4 hours. But in reality, the observers are on the surface of the rotating Earth, so someone who sees the Moon on the eastern horizon at one moment sees it on the western horizon about 12 hours later. This adds an oscillation to

663-463: The Moon's ecliptic longitude is at an angle to the Sun (as viewed from the center of the Earth) of 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° respectively. Each of these phases appears at slightly different times at different locations on Earth, and tabulated times are therefore always geocentric (calculated for the Earth's center). Between the principal phases are intermediate phases, during which the apparent shape of

702-477: The Moon, and hence the approximate phase, can be calculated for any date by calculating the number of days since a known new moon (such as 1 January 1900 or 11 August 1999) and reducing this modulo 29.53059 days (the mean length of a synodic month ). The difference between two dates can be calculated by subtracting the Julian day number of one from that of the other, or there are simpler formulae giving (for instance)

741-620: The Northern Hemisphere, together with about two-thirds of Africa and a small part of South America . During the 2.5 million years of the Pleistocene , numerous cold phases called glacials ( Quaternary ice age ), or significant advances of continental ice sheets, in Europe and North America , occurred at intervals of approximately 40,000 to 100,000 years. The long glacial periods were separated by more temperate and shorter interglacials which lasted about 10,000–15,000 years. The last cold episode of

780-512: The Sun (the plane of the ecliptic ). Thus, when new and full moons occur, the Moon usually lies to the north or south of a direct line through the Earth and Sun. Although an eclipse can only occur when the Moon is either new (solar) or full (lunar), it must also be positioned very near the intersection of Earth's orbital plane about the Sun and the Moon's orbital plane about the Earth (that is, at one of its nodes ). This happens about twice per year, and so there are between four and seven eclipses in

819-704: The Sun can be seen to the north, directly overhead, or to the south at noon, depending on the time of year. In the Southern Hemisphere, the midday Sun is predominantly in the north. When viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, the Moon appears inverted compared to a view from the Southern Hemisphere. The North Pole faces away from the Galactic Center of the Milky Way . This results in the Milky Way being sparser and dimmer in

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858-467: The Sun during a new moon, its shadow would fall on Earth causing a solar eclipse , but this does not happen every month. Nor is it true that during every full moon, the Earth's shadow falls on the Moon, causing a lunar eclipse . Solar and lunar eclipses are not observed every month because the plane of the Moon's orbit around the Earth is tilted by about 5° with respect to the plane of Earth's orbit around

897-434: The apparent progression of the lunar phases. They appear to occur more slowly when the Moon is high in the sky than when it is below the horizon. The Moon appears to move jerkily, and the phases do the same. The amplitude of this oscillation is never more than about four hours, which is a small fraction of a month . It does not have any obvious effect on the appearance of the Moon. It does however affect accurate calculations of

936-420: The back side of the Moon to be visible to a terrestrial observer some of the time. Because of this, around 59% of the Moon's surface has been imaged from the ground. When the Sun and Moon are aligned on the same side of the Earth (conjunct), the Moon is "new", and the side of the Moon facing Earth is not illuminated by the Sun. As the Moon waxes (the amount of illuminated surface as seen from Earth increases),

975-495: The crescent Moon is most often seen from the tropics. The waxing and waning crescents look very similar. The waxing crescent appears in the western sky in the evening, and the waning crescent in the eastern sky in the morning. When the Moon (seen from Earth) is a thin crescent , Earth (as viewed from the Moon) is almost fully lit by the Sun. Often, the dark side of the Moon is dimly illuminated by indirect sunlight reflected from Earth, but

1014-655: The equator. The winds pull surface water with them, creating currents, which flow westward due to the Coriolis effect . The currents then bend to the right, heading north. At about 30 degrees north latitude, a different set of winds, the westerlies , push the currents back to the east, producing a closed clockwise loop. Its surface is 60.7% water, compared with 80.9% water in the case of the Southern Hemisphere , and it contains 67.3% of Earth's land. The continents of North America and mainland Eurasia are located entirely in

1053-630: The form of snow. Areas inside the Arctic Circle (66°34′ latitude) experience some days in summer when the Sun never sets, and some days during the winter when it never rises. The duration of these phases varies from one day for locations right on the Arctic Circle to several months near the Pole, which is the middle of the Northern Hemisphere. Between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer (23°26′ latitude) lies

1092-529: The illuminated Moon is either crescent or gibbous . On average, the intermediate phases last one-quarter of a synodic month , or 7.38 days. The term waxing is used for an intermediate phase when the Moon's apparent shape is thickening, from new to a full moon; and waning when the shape is thinning. The duration from full moon to new moon (or new moon to full moon) varies from approximately 13 days 22 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours to about 15 days 14 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours . Due to lunar motion relative to

1131-401: The lunar phases progress through the new moon, crescent moon, first-quarter moon, gibbous moon, and full moon phases. The Moon then wanes as it passes through the gibbous moon, third-quarter moon, and crescent moon phases, before returning back to new moon. The terms old moon and new moon are not interchangeable. The "old moon" is a waning sliver (which eventually becomes undetectable to

1170-504: The meridian and the ecliptic , in Earth's northern hemisphere : Non-Western cultures may use a different number of lunar phases; for example, traditional Hawaiian culture has a total of 30 phases (one per day). As seen from Earth, the Moon's eccentric orbit makes it both slightly change its apparent size, and to be seen from slightly different angles. The effect is subtle to the naked eye, from night to night, yet somewhat obvious in time-lapse photography. Lunar libration causes part of

1209-405: The month into two fourteen day periods that mark the waxing moon and the waning moon. The ancient Roman calendar was broadly a lunisolar one; on the decree of Julius Caesar in the first century BCE, Rome changed to a solar calendar of twelve months, each of a fixed number of days except in a leap year . This, the Julian calendar (slightly revised in 1582 to correct the leap year rule),

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1248-407: The naked eye) until the moment it aligns with the Sun and begins to wax, at which point it becomes new again. Half moon is often used to mean the first- and third-quarter moons, while the term quarter refers to the extent of the Moon's cycle around the Earth, not its shape. When an illuminated hemisphere is viewed from a certain angle, the portion of the illuminated area that is visible will have

1287-490: The number of days since 31 December 1899. However, this calculation assumes a perfectly circular orbit and makes no allowance for the time of day at which the new moon occurred and therefore may be incorrect by several hours. (It also becomes less accurate the larger the difference between the required date and the reference date.) It is accurate enough to use in a novelty clock application showing lunar phase, but specialist usage taking account of lunar apogee and perigee requires

1326-467: The opposite sides appear to wax or wane. Closer to the Equator , the lunar terminator will appear horizontal during the morning and evening. Since the above descriptions of the lunar phases only apply at middle or high latitudes , observers moving towards the tropics from northern or southern latitudes will see the Moon rotated anti-clockwise or clockwise with respect to the images in this article. The lunar crescent can open upward or downward, with

1365-535: The phenomenon of earthshine may be apparent, where the night side of the Moon dimly reflects indirect sunlight reflected from Earth. In the Northern Hemisphere , if the left side of the Moon is dark, then the bright part is thickening, and the Moon is described as waxing (shifting toward full moon). If the right side of the Moon is dark, then the bright part is thinning, and the Moon is described as waning (past full and shifting toward new moon). Assuming that

1404-407: The times of lunar phases. It can be confusing that the Moon's orbital sidereal period is 27.3 days while the phases complete a cycle once every 29.5 days (synodic period). This is due to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The Moon orbits the Earth 13.4 times a year, but only passes between the Earth and Sun 12.4 times. It might be expected that once every month, when the Moon passes between Earth and

1443-450: The viewer is in the Northern Hemisphere, the right side of the Moon is the part that is always waxing. (That is, if the right side is dark, the Moon is becoming darker; if the right side is lit, the Moon is getting brighter.) In the Southern Hemisphere , the Moon is observed from a perspective inverted, or rotated 180°, to that of the Northern and to all of the images in this article, so that

1482-448: The weather patterns that affect many factors within the north coast. For the same reason, flows of air down toward the northern surface of the Earth tend to spread across the surface in a clockwise pattern. Thus, clockwise air circulation is characteristic of high pressure weather cells in the Northern Hemisphere. Conversely, air rising from the northern surface of the Earth (creating a region of low pressure) tends to draw air toward it in

1521-482: The winter months. In the Northern Hemisphere, objects moving across or above the surface of the Earth tend to turn to the right because of the Coriolis effect . As a result, large-scale horizontal flows of air or water tend to form clockwise-turning gyres . These are best seen in ocean circulation patterns in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. Within the Northern Hemisphere, oceanic currents can change

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