Every person who ever lived has seen the same Moon. People have told stories about it, planted crops by it, painted it and, in the end, walked on it. This site is a short, friendly guide to all of that.
The Moon panel shows how the Moon looks right now. Then scroll for phases, missions, myths, full moon names, sayings and art.
The Moon does not make its own light. It shines because sunlight bounces off it. Half of the Moon is always lit by the Sun. As the Moon goes around Earth, we see different amounts of that lit half. That is all a "phase" is.
One full cycle, from new moon back to new moon, takes about 29.5 days. That is where the word "month" comes from — it is related to "moon".
View from far above the North Pole. Not to scale: the Moon is really about 30 Earth-widths away, and the Sun is about 400 times farther than the Moon. The Moon's orbit is tilted by about 5°, so at most new and full moons it passes just above or below the Sun–Earth line. That is why we don't get an eclipse every month.
The Moon sits between Earth and the Sun. The lit side faces away from us, so we can't see it.
A thin smile of light appears. "Waxing" means growing. Look west just after sunset.
Half of the face is lit. It is called a "quarter" because the Moon is a quarter of the way around its orbit.
More than half is lit and it keeps growing. "Gibbous" means bulging.
Earth is between the Sun and Moon. We see the whole lit face. It rises at sunset and sets at sunrise.
The light starts shrinking. "Waning" means getting smaller. It rises later each night.
Half lit again, but the other half. Easy to spot in the morning sky.
A thin crescent seen before dawn. Then the cycle starts again.
In the northern hemisphere: if the right side is lit, the Moon is growing. If the left side is lit, it is shrinking. In the southern hemisphere it is the other way round. Near the equator — in Singapore, for example — the crescent often looks like a boat lying on its back.
Phases are not caused by Earth's shadow. That only happens during a lunar eclipse, when Earth blocks sunlight from reaching a full moon. The Moon can turn a deep red — the "blood moon". A solar eclipse is the opposite: a new moon blocks the Sun.
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. Here are the basics, in plain numbers.
The leading idea: about 4.5 billion years ago, a planet-sized object (often called Theia) crashed into the young Earth. The debris thrown into space came together to form the Moon. Rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts support this idea.
The Moon spins once for every trip around Earth. So the same side always faces us. The "far side" is not dark — it gets sunlight just like the near side. We just never see it from Earth.
The Moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans. This makes the tides — the sea rising and falling twice a day. The Sun adds its own pull. When Sun and Moon line up (at new and full moon) tides are biggest.
Some craters near the Moon's poles never see sunlight. They are colder than −230 °C. Scientists believe they hold water ice. That ice could one day give astronauts drinking water, air and rocket fuel. This is why so many new missions head to the south pole.
Since 1959, many countries — and now private companies — have sent spacecraft to the Moon. Some landed safely. Many crashed. Landing on the Moon is still hard. Tap a filter to see one country's story.
The Soviet Union's Luna 2 became the first object to reach the Moon's surface (by crashing into it on purpose). A few weeks later, Luna 3 sent back the first photos of the far side.
The first spacecraft to land gently and send pictures from the surface. It proved the ground was firm enough to stand on.
America's first soft landing. Surveyor and the Lunar Orbiter craft helped choose safe places for astronauts.
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were the first people to orbit the Moon. They took the famous "Earthrise" photo on Christmas Eve.
On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Sea of Tranquility. Michael Collins waited in orbit.
Luna 16 was the first robot to bring Moon soil back to Earth. Lunokhod 1 was the first rover to drive on another world, steered from Earth.
Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent three days on the Moon. Six Apollo landings brought home about 382 kg of Moon rock.
The last Soviet Moon mission. After it, no spacecraft landed on the Moon for 37 years.
Japan became the third country to send a spacecraft to the Moon.
Europe's first Moon mission. It used a gentle electric (ion) engine to get there, then studied the Moon's chemistry.
Japan's Kaguya made detailed maps and HD videos. China's first Moon probe, Chang'e 1, started a step-by-step Moon programme.
India's first Moon mission. A NASA instrument on board found signs of water across the Moon's surface.
LCROSS slammed into a dark polar crater and found water ice in the dust it threw up. LRO is still mapping the Moon today.
The first soft landing in 37 years. Yutu ("Jade Rabbit") is named after the rabbit of Chinese legend.
The first spacecraft ever to land on the far side. A relay satellite passed its signals back to Earth.
A small, privately built lander. It nearly made it, then lost its engine near the surface.
The Vikram lander crashed. The orbiter kept working and still sends science data.
Brought about 1.7 kg of young Moon rock to Earth — the first new samples since 1976.
Korea's first Moon mission. It carries a NASA camera that can see into the dark polar craters.
NASA's new SLS rocket and Orion capsule flew around the Moon with no crew on board.
A Japanese private lander, carrying the UAE's Rashid rover, crashed after misjudging its height.
Russia's first Moon mission in 47 years crashed before reaching the south pole.
On 23 August 2023, India became the fourth country to land softly on the Moon — and the first near the south pole. The rover Pragyan drove about 100 m.
Japan became the fifth country to land. SLIM touched down very close to its target, but tipped onto its nose. It still worked for a while.
The first private company to land on the Moon, and the first US landing since 1972. It fell on its side but sent back data.
Brought nearly 2 kg of soil back from the far side. No one had done that before.
The first private lander to touch down upright and fully succeed. It worked for about two weeks.
Athena landed near the south pole but tipped over. Japan's Resilience lander crashed.
From 1 to 10 April 2026, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch (NASA) and Jeremy Hansen (Canada) flew around the Moon and came home safely. It was the first crew to travel to the Moon since 1972, and they went farther from Earth than any humans before.
No missions match this filter.
The next few years are busy. These are planned dates. Space dates often slip, so treat them as targets, not promises.
Status checked in November 2026.
A robot cargo lander heading for the south pole. It was meant to fly in late 2026, but a New Glenn rocket exploded on Blue Origin's only launch pad in May 2026. It tests the company's lander before a bigger one carries people.
An orbiter, a lander, a rover and a small "hopping" robot. The hopper will jump into dark craters near Shackleton crater to look for ice. It was meant to launch in 2026 but was moved to 2027.
A crew will practise docking Orion with the new commercial Moon landers — but in orbit around Earth, not at the Moon. It is a dress rehearsal for the landing.
Small private landers will carry NASA science to places like Reiner Gamma, a strange bright swirl on the Moon's surface.
A rover built to drive around the south pole and measure how much water ice is really there.
India's first sample-return mission. Parts launched on two rockets will join up in space, collect soil and bring it home.
The target for the first crewed Moon landing since 1972. Astronauts in Orion will dock with a commercial lander and ride it down to the surface.
A second crewed landing, planned as the start of building a long-term US Moon base.
Will test ways to use Moon materials, like making building bricks from Moon soil. A step towards a research station.
An Indian lander and a Japanese rover will drill into the polar soil to study water ice up close.
Two Long March 10 rockets will launch the Mengzhou crew ship and the Lanyue lander separately. They meet in Moon orbit. Three astronauts go; two walk on the Moon. Uncrewed test flights come first, in 2027–2029.
The US plans a long-term base near the south pole. China and Russia lead the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), with other partner countries, aiming for a basic station in the 2030s.
A Moon night lasts about two Earth weeks, so solar panels are not enough. NASA wants a small nuclear reactor on the Moon by about 2030. China and Russia plan one for their station by about 2035.
Moon ice could become drinking water, oxygen and rocket fuel. Moon soil could be 3D-printed into roads and shelters. This is called "in-situ resource use".
The far side is shielded from Earth's radio noise. It may be the quietest place nearby to listen to the early universe.
NASA, Europe and others are planning relay satellites so landers, rovers and astronauts can talk and find their way — like a mini GPS for the Moon.
No one. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty says no country can claim it. More than 75 countries have also signed the Artemis Accords, which set shared rules for peaceful Moon work.
Look at the dark patches on the full moon. Some people see a face. Many in Asia and the Americas see a rabbit. Others see a woman, a man with sticks, or a toad. Here are fifteen favourite Moon stories from around the world, retold in simple words. Pick a region, then read them one at a time.
Long ago, ten suns lived in the sky. Usually they took turns, one each day. But one day all ten rose together. The heat was terrible. Crops dried up, rivers turned to dust and people could hardly breathe.
A great archer named Hou Yi climbed a mountain and shot down nine of the suns, one arrow at a time. He left just one, so the world would still have light. People cheered him as a hero. As a reward, the Queen Mother of the West gave him a potion that would let him live forever.
Hou Yi did not want to live forever without his wife, Chang'e. So he asked her to keep the potion safe. In one telling, a greedy man named Peng Meng broke into their home while Hou Yi was away and tried to steal it. To stop him, Chang'e drank the potion herself. At once she became light as air and floated up into the sky. She chose to stay on the Moon, the place closest to her husband.
The Moon turned out to be a cold, lonely palace. Chang'e has only two companions. One is a white rabbit, the Jade Rabbit, who pounds herbs in a mortar to make medicine. The other is a woodcutter, Wu Gang, who was punished by being made to chop down a magic osmanthus tree. Every time he cuts it, the tree heals itself, so his work never ends.
Back on Earth, the heartbroken Hou Yi laid out Chang'e's favourite fruits and cakes under the full moon. That, the story says, is how the custom of moon offerings began.
Remembered at the Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes and lanterns. China's Moon probes are named Chang'e, and its rovers Yutu ("Jade Rabbit").
This story comes from the Jataka tales — Buddhist stories about the past lives of the Buddha. Long ago, the Buddha-to-be was born as a hare. He lived in a forest with three friends: a monkey, a jackal and an otter. The hare was wise, and he taught his friends to be kind and to give to others, especially on the holy full-moon day.
When the holy day came, each friend went looking for food to share with anyone in need. The otter found some fish left by a fisherman. The jackal found some meat, a lizard and a pot of curd. The monkey picked ripe mangoes. But the hare ate only grass, and he knew no person could eat grass. "If someone comes to me," he thought, "I will give them my own body."
Sakka, king of the gods (known in Hindu stories as Indra), heard this and decided to test him. He came to the forest dressed as a poor, hungry old man. The monkey, jackal and otter gladly shared their food. When the old man came to the hare, the hare said, "Please gather wood and light a fire. I have nothing else to give, so I will give myself."
The fire was lit. The hare shook his fur three times, so that no tiny insect living in it would be hurt. Then he jumped into the flames. But the fire felt as cool as snow. The old man revealed himself as Sakka. "Your kindness should be remembered forever," he said. He squeezed a mountain to get its juice and used it to draw the hare's picture on the face of the Moon.
That is why, the story says, we can still see a hare on the Moon today. In Sanskrit, one old name for the Moon is Shashin — "the one marked with a hare".
In Sri Lanka, children are often told to look for the hare (hāvā) on full moon (Poya) nights — days when many people visit temples and practise giving.
An old bamboo cutter was working in the forest when he saw one bamboo stalk glowing with light. He cut it open. Inside sat a tiny girl, no bigger than his thumb. He and his wife had no children, so they took her home and raised her as their own. From that day, whenever he cut bamboo, he found gold inside. The family became rich.
The girl grew up in just three months into a young woman of amazing beauty. They named her Kaguya-hime, "the shining princess". Five noble princes came to ask for her hand. She did not want to marry, so she gave each one an impossible task: bring the Buddha's stone bowl, a jewelled branch from a magic mountain, a robe made of fire-rat fur that cannot burn, a jewel from a dragon's neck, and a shell hidden in a swallow's nest. Every prince failed. Some tried to trick her with fakes. One was badly hurt.
Even the emperor fell in love with her. She would not marry him either, but they wrote poems and letters to each other for years. Then Kaguya-hime began to look at the Moon every night and cry. At last she told her parents the truth: she was from the Moon. She had been sent to Earth for a while, and now her people were coming to take her home on the next full moon.
The emperor sent two thousand soldiers to guard the house. But when the Moon people came down on a glowing cloud, the soldiers felt weak and could not fight. Before she left, Kaguya-hime wrote a last letter to the emperor and gave him a little potion that would make him live forever. Then she put on a robe of feathers, which made her forget all her sadness on Earth, and floated away.
The emperor did not want to live forever without her. He ordered his men to burn the letter and the potion on top of the highest mountain, the one closest to the sky. Some say that is why smoke once rose from Mount Fuji.
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is over a thousand years old — one of Japan's oldest stories. Japan's 2007 Moon probe was named Kaguya after her. Japanese folklore also sees a rabbit on the Moon, pounding rice to make mochi cakes.
Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, loves sweets — especially modaks, sweet dumplings. One night, on his birthday, people offered him so many sweets that he ate and ate until his belly was very round. Late at night he set off for home, riding on his little mouse.
On the way, a snake slid across the path. The mouse got a fright and jumped. Ganesha tumbled to the ground, and his belly burst open, spilling sweets everywhere. Calmly, he picked up the sweets, put them back, and tied his belly shut using the snake as a belt.
Up in the sky, Chandra, the Moon god, saw it all. Chandra was very proud of his good looks, and he burst out laughing. Ganesha was hurt and angry. He cursed the Moon: from now on, Chandra would lose his beauty and fade away. The Moon went dark, and the night sky was gloomy.
The other gods begged Ganesha to forgive him, and Chandra said sorry. Ganesha softened the curse. The Moon would shrink and fade, but then grow back again — over and over. However, anyone who looked at the Moon on Ganesha's birthday would face trouble, such as being blamed for something they did not do. One famous story says even Lord Krishna was wrongly accused of stealing a jewel after seeing the Moon on that night.
Indian stories have another tale for the Moon's phases too. Chandra married 27 sisters — the 27 star groups (nakshatras) the Moon passes through each month. But he loved only one of them, Rohini. Their angry father cursed Chandra to waste away. The curse was later softened so he would fade and then return — which is why the Moon wanes and waxes.
On Ganesh Chaturthi, many people still avoid looking at the Moon.
A poor mother went to work at a feast in a village over the hills. She was paid with rice cakes. On her way home, a tiger blocked her path. "Give me a rice cake and I won't eat you," it growled. She gave it one. But at the next hill the tiger was there again, and again, until the rice cakes were gone. Then the tiger ate her.
The tiger put on the mother's clothes and went to her house, where her son and daughter were waiting. "Open the door, it's Mother," it called. The children thought the voice sounded rough. "Show us your hand," they said. The hand was hairy! Then they saw a striped tail sticking out. The children ran out the back door and climbed a tall tree beside the well.
The tiger saw them and asked how they had climbed up. The boy joked, "We rubbed sesame oil on the trunk." The tiger tried, and kept slipping. But then his little sister laughed and said, "Silly tiger, you use an axe to cut steps!" The tiger started chopping and climbing.
The children prayed: "Heaven, if you want to save us, please send down a strong rope." A rope came down, and they climbed up into the sky. The tiger prayed for a rope too. One came down — but it was rotten. Halfway up, it snapped, and the tiger fell into a field of sorghum. Some say that is why sorghum stalks have red spots.
In the sky, the boy became the Moon and the girl became the Sun. In many tellings the girl was first given the Moon, but she was afraid of the dark night, so they swapped. She was also shy of people staring at her, so the Sun shines so brightly that no one can look straight at her.
This is one of Korea's best-known folk tales, often called Haenim Dalnim (Sun and Moon).
In stories from the Visayas in the central Philippines, the great god Bathala made the night sky beautiful by hanging not one, but seven moons in it. Each one glowed in the dark, and people loved to look at them.
Deep in the sea lived Bakunawa, a giant sea serpent with a mouth as wide as a lake. Every night it looked up at the seven moons and wanted them for itself. One by one, it rose out of the ocean and swallowed them. Soon six moons were gone. Only one was left.
The people were terrified. If Bakunawa ate the last moon, the nights would be dark forever. So whenever Bakunawa rose to swallow it, they ran outside and made as much noise as they could — banging pots, pans and drums, and shouting at the sky. The noise annoyed Bakunawa so much that it spat the Moon back out. Some tellings say the gods also planted bamboo on the Moon to protect it, and that is what we see as the dark patches.
Bakunawa never gave up. Every eclipse, the old stories said, was the serpent trying again. Similar moon-swallowing monsters appear elsewhere in Asia, such as Rahu in Hindu stories, a demon head that swallows the Sun and Moon. Because Rahu has no body, they slip out of his throat again.
For many generations, Filipinos really did go outside to bang pots during eclipses. Today Bakunawa is a favourite figure in Filipino art, songs and tattoos.
A reminder that, for many cultures, an eclipse was something people faced together, out loud.
In ancient Greece, the Moon was a goddess named Selene. Her brother Helios was the Sun, and her sister Eos was the Dawn. Every evening, after Helios finished his journey across the sky, Selene rose from the ocean. Wearing a crescent moon as a crown, she drove a silver chariot pulled by white horses across the night.
One night, as she looked down, she saw a young shepherd named Endymion asleep in a cave on Mount Latmus. He was so handsome that Selene fell in love with him at once.
But Endymion was human, and humans grow old and die. In one telling, Zeus offered Endymion a gift: he could sleep forever and never grow old. In another, Selene herself asked for this. Either way, Endymion sleeps on, forever young. Every night Selene slips down from the sky to visit him. Some ancient writers even said they had fifty daughters.
Later, the Romans called the Moon goddess Luna. Over time, other goddesses became linked to the Moon too — Artemis, the hunter (called Diana by the Romans), and Hecate, goddess of crossroads and magic.
Selene is still with us in words. The study of the Moon is called selenology. The chemical element selenium was named after her. And NASA named its new Moon programme Artemis, after the twin sister of Apollo.
"Luna" gave us words like "lunar" and "lunatic" — people once believed the Moon could affect the mind.
Old Norse stories were written down in Iceland about 800 years ago. They tell of a man named Mundilfari who had two beautiful children. He was so proud that he named his son Máni ("Moon") and his daughter Sól ("Sun").
The gods thought this was far too proud. So they took the two children and put them in the sky. Sól was made to drive the chariot of the Sun, and Máni to guide the Moon. Máni decides when the Moon grows and when it shrinks.
Máni did not travel alone. He once took two children from Earth, Bil and Hjúki, as they were carrying water from a well. They have followed him ever since. Some writers in the 1800s guessed they might be the origin of the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill", but that is only a guess.
Why do the Sun and Moon keep moving? Because they are being chased. A wolf named Sköll runs after Sól, and another wolf, Hati, runs after Máni. They can never stop to rest. At the end of the world, called Ragnarök, the wolves will finally catch them and the sky will go dark. But the stories say a new world will rise afterwards.
Notice that in Norse stories the Moon is a man and the Sun is a woman — the opposite of ancient Greece.
The Moon is still in our week. Monday is "Moon's day" — just like lundi in French and lunes in Spanish.
Many people in Europe looked at the full moon and saw a man — often carrying a bundle of sticks on his back. Where did he come from? Different places had different answers.
The most common story says a man went out to gather firewood on Sunday, the holy day of rest. A stranger stopped him and said, "Don't you know it's Sunday? No one should work today." The man laughed. "Sunday on Earth or Monday in heaven, it's all the same to me." "Then carry your bundle forever," said the stranger, "and you shall have a never-ending Moon-day in heaven." And the man was sent to the Moon.
The idea grew from a story in the Bible's Book of Numbers about a man punished for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Other people said the Man in the Moon was Cain, banished with a bundle of thorns. The Italian poet Dante, writing in the early 1300s, also pictured "Cain and his thorns" on the Moon.
Shakespeare loved the idea too. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, a group of workmen put on a play, and one of them acts as "Moonshine". He carries a lantern, a thorn bush and a dog. In The Tempest, a character says he has seen the Man in the Moon with his dog and his bush.
Why do so many people see faces in the Moon? Our brains are built to spot faces everywhere — in clouds, in electric sockets, in the front of cars. Scientists call this pareidolia.
Old English nursery rhymes still mention the Man in the Moon, who "came down too soon".
Ancient Egyptians linked the Moon with several gods. Khonsu, whose name means "traveller", crossed the sky each night. Thoth, the wise god of writing with the head of an ibis bird, measured time by the Moon. The Moon was also seen as the eye of the god Horus — injured in a fight and healed again, just as the Moon fades and returns.
A famous story, written down by the Greek writer Plutarch, begins with the sky goddess Nut. Nut was expecting children. But the sun god Ra was not happy about it. He cursed her so that she could not give birth on any day of the year. In those days, the year had only 360 days.
Thoth wanted to help Nut. So he went to the Moon and challenged it to a board game. Game after game, Thoth won — and each time, he took a little of the Moon's light as his prize. When he had won enough, he used that light to make five brand-new days. They did not belong to any month, so Ra's curse did not apply to them.
On those five extra days, Nut gave birth to five children: Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis and Nephthys — some of the most important gods of Egypt. Some retellings add that, having lost some of its light, the Moon can no longer shine full every night.
There is real science hidden in this story. Twelve Moon months add up to only about 354 days, which is short of a full year. The Egyptian calendar used 12 months of 30 days, plus five extra festival days, to make 365.
A clever myth to explain why the Moon's months and the Sun's year don't quite fit together.
More than 4,000 years ago, in what is now southern Iraq, the Sumerian people worshipped the Moon god Nanna. Later, people called him Sin. They pictured him sailing across the night sky in a boat — and a thin crescent moon does look a bit like a little boat.
Nanna was an important god. In Sumerian stories he was the father of Utu, the Sun, and of Inanna, the goddess of love and war, who was linked with the bright planet Venus. So the Moon was the parent of the Sun!
Nanna's home city was Ur. There, people built a giant stepped temple called a ziggurat, about 4,100 years ago. Its lower part still stands in the desert of Iraq today, and you can visit it.
Nanna's high priestess at Ur was a woman named Enheduanna, daughter of the great king Sargon of Akkad. She wrote beautiful hymns to the gods. She lived around 4,300 years ago, and she is usually called the earliest author in history whose name we know.
Mesopotamian sky-watchers studied the Moon closely for centuries. Later Babylonian astronomers kept careful records of eclipses and learned to predict them — some of the world's first real astronomy.
The crescent moon has stayed a powerful symbol in this part of the world ever since.
The Khoikhoi are herding peoples of southern Africa. For them, the Moon was an important power in the sky. They noticed something comforting about it: the Moon fades away, but it always comes back.
One night the Moon looked down and saw people crying over someone who had died. She wanted to give them hope. So she decided to send them a message: "As I die and come back to life, so you too will die and come back to life." In one telling, she first gave the message to a slow little insect. A hare saw it and said, "I am much faster. Let me take the message."
The hare raced off to the people. But on the way, he mixed up the words — or changed them on purpose. When he arrived, he told them: "As I die and do not come back, so you too will die and come to an end."
When the Moon found out, she was furious. She hit the hare with a stick and split his lip. That, the story says, is why hares have a split upper lip. The hare fought back and scratched the Moon's face — and those scratches are the dark marks you can still see on the Moon.
Many African peoples tell similar stories about how death came into the world through a wrong message. A Zulu story tells of a slow chameleon carrying the message of life, and a fast lizard carrying the message of death. The lizard got there first.
A story that explains two things at once: why people die, and why the Moon has marks on its face.
The Aztecs believed the world had ended and been remade several times. After one world ended, everything was dark. The gods met at a holy place called Teotihuacan to decide who would become the new Sun. To do it, someone had to jump into a huge fire.
A rich, proud god named Tecciztecatl stepped forward. He offered fine feathers, gold and precious green stones. A poor, sick god named Nanahuatzin, covered in sores, also offered himself. He had nothing rich to give — only reeds and thorns marked with his own blood.
The fire burned for four days. Tecciztecatl ran towards it four times, but each time he got scared and stopped. Then Nanahuatzin ran and leapt straight into the flames without fear. Ashamed, Tecciztecatl finally jumped in after him.
Nanahuatzin rose in the east as the blazing Sun. But then Tecciztecatl rose too — and he shone just as brightly. The gods said, "Two suns are too many!" So one of them grabbed a rabbit and threw it hard at Tecciztecatl's face. His light grew dim, and he became the Moon. You can still see the rabbit there.
The ruins of Teotihuacan still stand near Mexico City, with two great pyramids. The Aztecs, who found the city long after it was abandoned, called them the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon.
In Maya art, the Moon goddess is also often shown holding a rabbit.
This story is told among the Inuit of Greenland, with other versions across the Arctic. Long ago, a brother and sister lived in the same village. One dark night, during a gathering in a snow house with the lamps put out, a stranger kept bothering the sister, Malina.
Malina rubbed soot from a lamp onto her hands. The next time the stranger came close, she smeared it on his face. When the lamps were lit again, she saw the black marks — on her own brother, Anningan. She was shocked and angry.
Malina grabbed a burning torch and ran out into the night. Anningan grabbed a torch too and ran after her, but his flame went out, leaving only glowing embers. They ran so fast that they rose up into the sky. Malina became the bright Sun. Anningan, with his dim glow, became the Moon. The dark smudges of soot are still on his face.
Anningan is still chasing his sister. He runs so hard that he forgets to eat, and he grows thinner and thinner — that is the Moon waning. Then he disappears for a few days to go hunting and eat. He comes back round and full, and the chase starts again.
The names change from place to place — in Alaska the Moon man is often called Igaluk — but the idea of the Sun and Moon as a sister and brother is shared across the Arctic.
In the far north, where the Sun can vanish for weeks in winter, these stories explain why the Sun and Moon are so rarely seen together.
Rona was a mother. One night her children woke up thirsty. Rona picked up a gourd (a hollow fruit shell used as a water bottle) and went to fetch water from a stream.
At first, the full moon lit her way. But then a cloud drifted across the Moon, and the path went dark. Rona tripped over a tree root and hurt her foot. In her anger she shouted a terrible insult at the Moon — calling it a "cooked head", one of the worst things you could say.
The Moon heard her. It reached down from the sky to take her away. Rona grabbed hold of a ngaio tree to save herself. But the Moon was too strong. It pulled the whole tree out of the ground, roots and all, and carried Rona, the tree and her gourd up into the sky.
Her family searched for her, but Rona was gone. Look closely at the full moon and, Māori say, you can see her there — still holding her gourd, next to the ngaio tree. Some traditions say Rona now helps control the tides.
The Moon is very important in Māori life. The traditional Māori calendar, the maramataka, gives each night of the Moon's cycle its own name. It is still used to choose good days for fishing, planting and resting.
A story with a clear lesson for children: watch your words — even the Moon is listening.
Long before calendars on phones, people named each full moon after what was happening in nature or in their religious year. The English names below were made popular by the Old Farmer's Almanac. They mix Native American, early American and European traditions. Next to them are the names used for the same full moon in Sri Lanka, India and old Japan.
| Month | English name | Why the name | Sri Lanka (Poya) | India (Purnima month) | Japan (old month name) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Wolf Moon | Wolves were heard howling on cold winter nights. | Duruthu | Pausha | Mutsuki |
| Feb | Snow Moon | Often the month with the heaviest snow. | Navam | Magha | Kisaragi |
| Mar | Worm Moon | The ground softens and earthworms come back. | Medin | Phalguna | Yayoi |
| Apr | Pink Moon | Named after pink spring wildflowers (not the Moon's colour). | Bak | Chaitra | Uzuki |
| May | Flower Moon | Flowers bloom everywhere. | Vesak | Vaishakha | Satsuki |
| Jun | Strawberry Moon | Time to pick wild strawberries. | Poson | Jyeshtha | Minazuki |
| Jul | Buck Moon | Male deer grow new antlers. | Esala | Ashadha | Fumizuki |
| Aug | Sturgeon Moon | Large sturgeon fish were easy to catch in lakes. | Nikini | Shravana | Hazuki |
| Sep | Harvest Moon* | Bright moonlight let farmers work late to bring in crops. | Binara | Bhadrapada | Nagatsuki |
| Oct | Hunter's Moon | Hunting time before winter. | Vap | Ashvin | Kannazuki |
| Nov | Beaver Moon | Beavers get ready for winter; traps were set. | Il | Kartika | Shimotsuki |
| Dec | Cold Moon | Long, cold nights. | Unduvap | Margashirsha | Shiwasu |
*The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the September equinox, so in some years it falls in October. Sri Lankan, Indian and Japanese months follow the Moon, so they only roughly match our calendar months and shift a little each year. Sri Lanka's Poya months and India's Hindu months line up because they share the same old lunar calendar — Vesak Poya and Buddha Purnima are the same full moon. Japan's old month names come from its former lunar calendar and are still used in poetry for today's months. The Islamic calendar is purely lunar and moves about 11 days earlier each year, and Chinese lunar months are mostly numbered, so neither fits a fixed table like this.
We use the Moon in everyday speech all the time. Here are common sayings and what they really mean.
For centuries, artists have tried to capture moonlight. These works are all old enough to be in the public domain. Tap any picture to see it larger.
Based on the view from van Gogh's window at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, France. A bright crescent moon burns in the top corner. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Two friends stand quietly and watch a thin moon rise. We see them from behind, so we share their view. Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden.
Shown alone in a darkened room, its glowing river looked so real that some visitors reportedly peeked behind the canvas for a hidden lamp. Russian Museum, St Petersburg.
A traveller sleeps in the desert. A lion sniffs her but does not attack. A calm full moon watches over a dreamlike scene. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Some of the first drawings of the Moon seen through a telescope. Galileo showed it had mountains and craters — it was a world, not a perfect sphere. National Central Library, Florence.
From the series One Hundred Aspects of the Moon (1885–92). It shows Bodhidharma — the monk traditionally said to have brought Zen to China — meditating by moonlight.
A famous pine at Ueno, Tokyo, had a branch that curled into a ring. People called it the "Moon Pine" because the moon could be seen through the loop. From One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.
Grimshaw loved wet streets at night, with moonlight and gas lamps shining on the cobbles. Tate, London.
These public-domain images come from Wikimedia Commons and are hosted on this site. Links to each original file are in the credits below.