For this quick and eady home experiment, you will simulate the changing phases of the Moon . Why the Moon rises nearly an hour later each day Because the Moon orbits the Earth, its position in the sky will appear to change night after night. In fact, it will appear to rise later by nearly an hour each day. If we were to look down on the North Pole of the Earth and the Moon in its orbit about the Earth, we would see something like the diagram below. In this picture, the Moon is directly overhead Boulder.
Boulder rotates around until it is in the same position as before.
For us on the Earth, it would appear that the Moon is appearing in the sky later, since we have to wait a little longer the second day for the Moon to appear in the same position in the sky. This calculation assumes we are close to the equator. It is not exactly 51 minutes - the daily delay of moonrise can vary considerably with latitude. The motion of the Moon would appear to us on the Earth like in the below diagram, where we are standing in Boulder, and looking towards the South, with the Flatirons to the West. The rotation of the Earth gives us the appearance of the Sun and Moon rising in the East and setting in the West.