Waxing Crescent Moon 21-04-2018

This intermediate Moon phase comes after New Moon and lasts until half of the Moon’s visible surface is illuminated at First Quarter Moon.

The Waxing Crescent Moon starts as the Moon becomes visible again after the New Moon conjunction, when the Sun and Earth are on opposite sides of the Moon, making it impossible to see the Moon from Earth. During this phase, the lit-up part of the Moon increases from 0.1% to 49.9%.

Waxing means that it is growing, while crescent refers to the curved sickle shape.

The Moon’s surface reflects the Sun’s rays, and half of it is always illuminated by sunlight. Just how much of that light we can see from Earth varies every day, and we refer to this as a Moon Phase.

Although only a small part of the Moon is directly illuminated by the Sun at the start of the Waxing Crescent Moon phase, the rest of the Moon is sometimes also faintly visible. The reason is that Earth reflects sunlight as a faint glow onto the Moon. This phenomenon is called earthshine or the Davinci glow, and it is most noticeable in April and May. (*Source: timeanddate.com)