We think of the Moon as something we see only at night, or as the daylight dims in the evening. In fact, the Moon is visible during the day just as often as it is at night. The Moon produces no light of its own, but reflects the light from the Sun. The Sun’s rays bounce of its surface, giving it the brilliant white glow we see from Earth. Being so close to us, the Moon is the second brightest object in the sky—bright enough to be seen in daylight hours, while the Sun outshines the stars and planets. Provided the Moon is above the horizon, we are thus able to see it during the day.

The Earth, tilted on an axis, orbits around the Sun. At the same time, the Moon orbits the Earth, with one side of it permanently facing towards us. The Moon completes about 13 orbits in the time it takes for the Earth to complete a single orbit of the Sun.

​​​​​​​The Sun always shines on roughly half the Moon; it is this part we see from different angles as the Moon travels around the Earth. Sometimes none of the Moon's illuminated side is visible from Earth at all. This is called a New Moon.

Over the course of its journey round the Earth, the Moon is actually above our horizon for about 12 hours out of a 24-hour day. Some of those 12 hours will be during the day, some at night: the Moon rises and sets on its own schedule, quite different to sunrise and sunset. The only time when it is not visible during daylight hours is the period around a New Moon, when it is too close to the Sun to be visible, and the period around a Full Moon, when it is visible only at night.