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the different shapes are called phases and they change as the moon moves round the earth and therefore changes the distance from the sun so the dark part is the shadow of the moon and the part you can see is the part in the sunlight.

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The moon doesn't actually change shape. You may be asking why it sometimes looks round, at other times, crescent shaped. It's not changed shape, it's that you can only see part of it, and different parts at different times. When the position of the moon, earth and sun are such that they are in that order, the whole side of the moon that's towards the earth is lit by the sun and we see it as a round shape. But usually the earth is not exactly in between the moon and the sun, but a bit offset. We then see part of the moon that's not lit as well as part that is. The part that is varies in its apparent shape depending on just how much of it we can see. If most of what we can see is unlit, the lit bit looks like a slim crescent.

Also, the phases do not change as the moon moves round the earth but how its relationship with the sun and earth changes

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14y ago

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