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You see the Moon illuminated differently depending on where it is in its orbit around Earth: sometimes it rises completely full (full moon), then it wanes into a crescent shape, nearly disappears (new moon), and then grows again on the other side. The entire cycle takes about a month.
What not everyone realizes is that the Moon always has the same side lit by the Sun, but we see different percentages of that face depending on the angle it's at relative to Earth. One night I was looking at the sky from my balcony and saw a crescent moon barely visible at sunset, and I thought about how wild the geometry is: the Moon was almost between us and the Sun, so we only saw a sliver. Then, a few days later, as the Moon moves along its orbit and gets farther from the Sun from our perspective, you see more and more of the lit portion until you reach the full moon. The complete cycle takes about 29 and a half days, so it's something you notice pretty quickly if you pay attention over a week or two.
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