From the brains behind brains on, this is the Moment of Um.

Answering those questions that make you go, um, um, moment of um, um, moment of um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Shayla Farsan.

Um.

I love sitting outside at night staring up at the moon. It's so big and white and beautiful that it inspires

me to write spontaneous poems, like this. Moon, oh, moon, you are so round. If you were a pizza,

I'd scarf you down. If you were a hoop, I'd hula you forever. In the alphabet of the sky,

O is your letter. Wait, hold up. The moon isn't round tonight like I expected. It's actually

skinny and curved like a fingernail clipping. Hmm, I can work with that.

Moon, you sneaky chameleon, you look different than I thought. You are full of surprises,

like a birthday piniat. Still, no matter your shape, your vibe is so pleasant,

whether round like a ball or curved like a crescent.

Hey, why does the moon change shape anyway?

And why is it white?

So much to ponder.

I guess Eloise was waxing poetically about the moon, too, because she sent in this question.

Hi, my name is Eloise. I am from Billings, Montana,

and here's my question. Why is the moon white and why does the moon have different shapes? It turns out that the moon's shape is not actually what's changing.

My name is Preston Dykes, and I'm a science communicator who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The moon looks white or bright in the night sky because it's reflecting sunlight.

Just like a mirror reflects light, the moon reflects light from the sun.

But if you were an astronaut standing on the moon's surface,

you'd see that its surface is actually more of a dark gray color, kind of like pencil lead

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