Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/74

30 phases are those which would be assumed by a spherical body of which one half only is illuminated by the sun. Thus the visible portion of the moon is bounded by two planes passing nearly through its centre, perpendicular respectively to the lines joining the centre of the moon to those of the sun and earth. In the accompanying diagram, which represents a section through the centres of the sun



, earth, and moon , representing on a much enlarged scale a section of the moon itself, the portion  which is turned away from the sun is dark, while the portion , being turned away from the observer on the earth, is in any case invisible to him. The part of the moon which appears bright is therefore that of which is a section, or the portion represented by  in fig. 9 (which represents the complete moon), which consequently appears to the eye as bounded by a semicircle, and a portion  of an oval curve (actually an ellipse). The breadth of this bright surface clearly varies with the relative positions of sun, moon, and earth; so that in the course of a month, during which the moon assumes successively the positions relative to sun and earth represented by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in fig. 10, its appearances are those represented by the corresponding numbers in fig. 11, the moon thus passing