Earth's moon is the second brightest thing in the sky.  The sun is the first.  When the Moon orbits around the Earth; The sun hits the moon at different angles.  That's what we call the Moon's phases.  Basically, it's how much of the sun's light is hitting the moon we can see. The time between new moons is 29.5 days (709 hours).  It takes about 28 days for the moon to orbit around the Earth and to make one revolution.  

It's hard to imagine the moon rotating, but it does.  We drew these pictures in Microsoft Paint to show you.  They may not be that great, but hopefully you will see how the moon rotates.

Some people have said that there is no gravity on the moon, but that's not true.  There is gravity, not much, but some.  About 1/6 of the amount of gravity as on Earth.  Think about this: how would all that dirt (called regolith) stay on the surface if there was no gravity?

The Moon's shape is strange. It looks round, but it's not.  It is shaped a little like an egg.  One end of the "egg" points toward Earth and the other end is on the side of the moon we can't see. Maybe that's why we can't really tell from here.   The side we cannot see has days and nights just like those on the near side. 

The Moon has a small metallic core.  Because of the magnetic rocks, scientist believe that the magnetic field on the moon used to be stronger than it is now, even though it never was very strong.

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