what makes a crescent moon

A crescent moon happens because of how the Sun lights the Moon and where the Moon is in its orbit around Earth, not because something is “blocking” it like an eclipse.

What makes a crescent moon?

• The Moon is always half lit by the Sun, just like Earth is always half in daylight and half in night.

• As the Moon orbits Earth, we see different amounts of that lit half from our point of view, and those changing views are the phases of the Moon.

• A crescent moon is when we see only a thin sliver of the sunlit side, because most of the lit half is turned away from us.

• Nothing is slicing the Moon; its curved “cut” is simply the boundary between the lit side and the dark side on a round object, so it appears as a curved crescent.

Think of a lamp (the Sun) shining on a ball (the Moon) while you walk around it in a circle: from some angles you see a full bright face, from others you see just a thin curved strip of light, which is the crescent.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.