Why Can We Only See One Side Of The Moon From Earth
Olivia Luz
Though sometimes we also see a glimpse of the far side of the moon due to some astronomical phenomenon called libration.
We only ever see one side of the moon because as it orbits around earth it also rotates on its own axis at the same speed. It s just that the amount of time it takes the moon to complete a revolution on its axis is the same it takes to circle our planet about 27 days. First the moon s orbit around earth is elliptical not circular so its rotation is sometimes ahead and sometimes behind its orbital motion. Viewed from earth the moon appears to rock slowly backwards and forwards so that we see a slightly different face throughout the lunar month.
Nasa jpl caltech the far side of the moon looks very different than the near side see the first photo in this article. The moon is directly illuminated by the sun and the cyclically. There are two main reasons for this. As a result the same lunar hemisphere always faces earth.
Only one side of the moon ever faces us because earth s force of gravity on it is not uniform. The near side of the moon is the lunar hemisphere that is permanently turned towards earth as opposed to the opposite far side only one side of the moon is visible from earth because the moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that the moon orbits the earth a situation known as synchronous rotation or tidal locking. This is related to our ocean tides and a lengthening of days o. The simple answer is that we only see one side of the moon because the moon rotates around the earth at the exact same angular speed in fact it s not exactly true we ll talk about it later too as it rotates around its own axis so that the same side of the moon is constantly facing the surface of the earth.
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And because the moon s rotation upon its axis takes the same amount of time as the moon s revolution for orbiting around earth which is about 29 5 days.
Source : pinterest.com