Why is there the sun and the moon? How do they work together in harmony?
342305
Yin Yang = Harmony :)
313164
Initially?  The Earth and a moon as a system conserve angular momentum.  The events that formed the Earth and the Moon all imparted (or transfered) a angular momentum to the system.  Our mutual rotations about each other are a result of this angular momentum.
473429
Because the moon reflects light from the sun.
32936
"The moon does not circle the Earth once a day. The Earth circles the sun once a day. The Moon orbits the Earth about twice every 24 hours. That's why we have tides (high and low)."\n\nSAY WHAT?  Not even close.  There are junior high science teachers weeping over this "answer".\n\nThe earth rotates once a day on its axis.  That is the definition of a day - the time it takes for a planetary body to rotate once on its axis. \nThe earth circles the sun once a year - actually 365.24 days (which is why we have leap years).  That is the definition of a year - the time it takes for a planet to orbit the sun.  As you can tell, planetary years are longer or shorter depending on the distance from the sun.\nOur earth's axis is tilted.  The northern hemisphere is closer to the sun in the summer and farther in the winter.  This is how we get seasons.\n\nThe moon orbits the earth once every twenty-eight days, give or take an afternoon. The phases of the moon are caused by it being in a slightly different position everyday relative to the sun.  \nThe moon does cause tides - its gravitational pull causes the oceans to bulge out towards the moon.  However, there is a matching bulge directly opposite the moon.  THAT is why we have two high tides and two low tides a day.  In addition, the sun exerts a lesser pull, which interacts with the moons pull.\n\nSorry about that - had to correct the flagrant misinformation there.\n\nAs for your question - it is a weird effect, isn't it?  Especially when the moon is closer to a new moon.\n\nWhat happens is that our atmosphere scatters the light from the sun so that our sky is quite bright.(Why is the sky blue? has been discussed here many times).  However, the moon is reflecting enough light so that it is brighter than the surrounding sky and we see it.\n\nWhen the moon is less than full, there is very little light reflected off of the dark side of the moon (what light is reflected is earthshine!)  This light is not bright enough to outshine the sky.\n\nThink of a white sheet (in a dark room) that images are being projected onto.  The sheet will look opaque until someone shines a light onto it from the back that is brighter than the image projected from the front.  That is the basic effect that we are getting - the atmosphere is a sheet, with the sun and the moon both shining on to it.
104556
No.\n\nThe distance between the Moon and the Sun is always changing.  Sometimes the Moon is between the Earth & the Sun, and sometimes it is on the other side of the Earth from the Sun.\n\nAll because the Moon is orbiting the Earth.
88905
The moon is in orbit around the earth. duh! but to answer your question you have to think that as the moon orbits it is orbiting the center of the planet. The earth turns also but it is quite unaffected by the moon, the two have nothing to do with each other. As you might know the earth is tilted some 23 degress from it's orbit around the sun. This tilting gives us our seasons. During winter the earth is tilted away from the sun and because of this sun sits low in the sky ( northern lattitudes of course). In the summer it is the opposite. Anyway the moon also has a tilt to it compared to earth's tilt. As it goes around and round we see it in different parts of it's seasons. Of course the moon takes only 28 days to go through it's year so not much is happening, but it explains why the moon seems to move. One more thing the moon rises in the east. Perhaps you meant the moon seems to rise more north or south- it does both
154230
if you mean like a new moon (solar eclipse) <every new moon, and a full mooon (lunar eclipse) <every full moon:\n\nbecause the earth and moon are not on the same plane, and the moon is in a higher altitude than earth, and the moon only crosses sometimes into the earth's plane with the sun.
1079025
no it is a reflection of the suns light.  That is why you can still see the moon during the day soemtimes.  It is still getting light from the sun.
410440
Assuming life on earth still existed and that water\ncould still be found (not all frozen), the tides \nwould be smaller, because the Moon influences the\ntides about 90% but the other 10% influence comes\nfrom the Sun's gravitational force... That's why\nthe tides are higher at New Moon and Full Moon, \nbecause both the Moon and Sun are pulling along\nthe same line, whereas at first quarter and last\nquarter Moon, the tides are relatively lower, \nsince the Sun and Moon's gravitation somewhat\ncancells each other out
846251
The moon has a 28-day orbit around the earth so naturally there is a part of that cycle when it will be on the same side of the earth as the sun. Note though that you cannot have a full moon in the sky during the day since a full moon means that the earth, sun and moon all line up. You can have a new moon in the sky during the day since the moon is then between us and the sun and all we see is the dark side.
892131
The moon is "tidally locked" with the earth.\n\nThis means that as it goes around the Earth in its orbit it spins just slowly enough so that one side is always facing the Earth, and one side cannot be seen from the Earth.\n\nAs the moon goes around the Earth, each part gets daylight and darkness just like days on the Earth - but the "day" on the moon is nearly a month long - exactly the same as its "year".\n\nImagine two ice skaters facing each other and holding (both) hands. As you swing your partner around you, you can see her face, but not her back.\n\nNow imagine a spotlight shining on you from one side of the rink. If your partner is facing the spotlight her face is lit up, and if she is facing away from the light all you see is her silhouette. When she's in-between, you see part of her face lit up. This is similar to what causes the phases of the moon.\n\nNotice that no part of her is always dark or always light - but her face is always towards you, and her back is always hidden from you. She has a near side and a far side. But not really a dark side or light side. \n\nWhen people say "dark side of the moon" they generally mean the far side of the moon (which is not always dark).
858636
All objects in our solar syatem get their light from our sun. How? Light travels from the sun and is reflected by the object, in this case the moon, and we see the reflected light.
969774
Think of it this way.  The earth has 4 sides, just because ONE OF THEM is looking at the moon and the Sun is facing another side, means nothing.  There is over 90,000,000 miles between the earth and the sun, so we only get a fraction of a percent of its total output of energy.  The Moon while it is in space going around us, is no longer "blocked" by the earth and can now receive its share of light from the sun.  HOWEVER, you may be surprised to learn that the albedo (reflection of light) from the moon is mostly caused by the Earth as much as the Sun.  That is, where it is now daylight on Earth is relecting off of the moon also.
344029
The moon's got gravity too, and like the Earth pulls the moon, the moon pulls on the Earth's waters. Depending on where the moon is, you get different tides. Kinda like if you move a magnet in a circle around a paperclip. The paperclip will move in different directions depending on where the magnet is.
940937
the light side of the moon move in front of the sun causing it to form the image you see that is know as the solar eclipse\n(since the dark side of the moon is facing you then it's clearly dark, and the sun's behind it so light shines around it)
991387
The phases of the moon are due to the portion of the moon that is being iluminated by the sun. The phases vary according to the relative position of the moon, Earth and sun. The moon is always there but once a moths it becomes invivible, this phase is know as New moon (or Dark moon), it occurs when the Sun and the moon are on the same side; therefore the the "dark" side of the moon is facing Earth so it appears to be invicible.
12664
The moon reflects the light of the Sun. It absorbs some colors and reflects the rest. As that reflected light passes through the Earth's atmosphere, other colors are filtered out. The color that makes it through, is the color you see.