Phases of the Moon
The primary phases of the lunar cycle.
The eight phases of the Moon in order, from new moon through full moon and back, each with a short description of how much of the near side is lit as seen from Earth.
Use it when
- You need the names and order of the lunar phases.
- You are explaining why the Moon appears to change shape.
Watch out for
- A full cycle (new moon to new moon) takes about 29.5 days, the synodic month.
- Phases depend on the Moon-Sun-Earth geometry, not on Earth's shadow; the shadow causes eclipses.
The data
8 rows
| Phase | Description |
|---|---|
| New Moon | Moon is between Earth and Sun; the unlit side faces Earth. |
| Waxing Crescent | A small sliver of the near side becomes visible. |
| First Quarter | Half of the near side is illuminated. |
| Waxing Gibbous | More than half of the near side is illuminated and growing. |
| Full Moon | The entire near side is illuminated. |
| Waning Gibbous | More than half illuminated but decreasing. |
| Third Quarter | Half of the near side is illuminated again. |
| Waning Crescent | A shrinking sliver before the new moon. |
Fields
The shape of this dataset, read from the data itself: every column, its type and a real value. Agents can use this to plan a query without fetching the whole document.
| Section | Field | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| data | phase | string | New Moon |
| data | description | string | Moon is between Earth and Sun; the unlit side f… |
Fetch the same bytes
The static files contain the same reference rows as the API, with no API rate limit. Live metadata, such as view counts, may differ. Use the API for content negotiation; use the static files for a cacheable snapshot.
curl "https://yjtoon.yunusemrevurgun.com/api/dataset/phases-of-moon?format=toon"
const res = await fetch( "https://yjtoon.yunusemrevurgun.com/static-data/dataset/phases-of-moon.toon" ); const toon = await res.text();
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