Lunation
Credit: António Cidadão
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The Moon's appearance changes nightly. The slow-loading time-lapse pictoral sequence shows what our Moon looks like during a lunation, a complete lunar cycle. As the Moon orbits the Earth, the half illuminated by the Sun first becomes increasingly visible, and then less so. The Moon always keeps the same face toward the Earth. It's size changes and a small variation called a libration is noticable as it moves along its elliptical orbit. During it's cycle, sunlight reflects from the Moon at different angles, and illuminates it's features differently. A full lunation takes about 29.5 days, just about a month (moon-th).
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