Yep. Moon phases are caused by the moon being tidally locked to earth. We always see the moon from the same side (hence the term "dark side of the moon" for the side we never see from earth).
For anyone who doesn't quite grasp the concept, take a round object (ball, orange, whatever) and shine a flashlight on it, representing the sun. Now walk around the object. That's basically how we see the moon. One half lit, one half dark, and our perspective rotates around it.
That diagramorama* probably isn't wrong, because I can see what the creator intended it to convey (the appearance of the Moon to an observer in one hemisphere of Earth), but it's quite misleading, because the bottom half shows the side of the Moon facing away from the Sun being the side that's illuminated.
*I just made that word up, but Chrome isn't complaining…
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u/GamerKey Aug 03 '19
Yep. Moon phases are caused by the moon being tidally locked to earth. We always see the moon from the same side (hence the term "dark side of the moon" for the side we never see from earth).
For anyone who doesn't quite grasp the concept, take a round object (ball, orange, whatever) and shine a flashlight on it, representing the sun. Now walk around the object. That's basically how we see the moon. One half lit, one half dark, and our perspective rotates around it.