Kent Johnson, age 10, Payson, Ill., for his question:

What is meant by the dark of the moon?

Near the end of the lunar month, the old moon shrinks to a thinner and thinner crescent of golden light. It is moving on its orbit to pass between us and the sun. Almost all of the side facing us turned away from the sun and is shrouded in shadows of the lunar night. The opposite side is bathed in lunar daylight and on our side, gradually the lunar night  creeps over the last golden rim.

For a few days and nights, the side facing us is all in darkness. There is none of the bright sunshine by which we see the surface of the moon. People call this period the dark of the moon. But the lunar day creeps around and soon we see a thin golden sliver on the opposite rim. After a few days of lunar darkness, the baby new moon is born again.