Why must the Moon travel more than a full orbit around the Earth for the full moon to be complete?

Question

Earth is orbiting the Sun changing the angle and making the Moon move a little past 1 orbit.

The Earth blocks the light of the Sun on forcing the Moon to move past 1 orbit to appear full.

The Earth is rotating every 24 hours and Moon is seen as full at night

The Moon is orbiting slower than Earth and has to move past slightly past 1 orbit to be seen as full

Answer 1

The correct explanation for why the Moon must travel slightly more than a full orbit around the Earth for a full moon to be complete is:

The Moon is orbiting slower than Earth and has to move slightly past 1 orbit to be seen as full.

Here's the reasoning:

1. The Moon takes about 27.3 days to complete one orbit around the Earth (this is known as the sidereal month).
2. During this time, the Earth is also moving in its orbit around the Sun.
3. Because the Earth moves, the Moon has to travel a bit more than 360 degrees in its orbit to catch up to the position where it is aligned with the Sun and Earth in such a way that it appears full from our perspective. This additional distance corresponds to about 2.2 days, resulting in a full moon occurring approximately every 29.5 days (the synodic month).

So, while the Moon completes one full orbit relative to the stars in about 27.3 days, it takes about 29.5 days for the cycle of phases (including the full moon) to complete.