Why Do We Always See The Same Side Of The Moon
Camila Farah
The reason why the moon always shows the same side to us is that the time taken to complete a rotation around its axis is the same as the time needed to complete an orbit around the earth.
Well this is due to the fact that the moon s orbit is elliptical and not circular. The moon orbits around the earth and takes approximately 28 days to make one full orbit. Since the rotational period is exactly the same as the orbital period the same portion of the moon always faces earth. How d this come to be.
That bulge ended up working like a brake slowing the moon s spin down to the current rate so the lunar high tide permanently faces us. From earth we always see nearly the same face of the moon. The moon s gravity slightly warps our planet s shape and gives us tides. The moon rotates on its own axis and it takes approximately 28 days to make one full rotation.
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. This happens because the moon rotates on its axis in the same amount of time it takes to orbit earth a trait called synchronous rotation. Nasa jpl caltech the far side of the moon looks very different than the near side see the first photo in this article. So from earth the moon always shows the same side.
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Likewise earth tugs at the moon creating a rocky high tide bulge facing us. Simply said because the moon s rotation coincide with its orbit around the earth we only see the same surface of the moon. 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. If the moon did not rotate on itself or did so at a different rate it would gradually show its entire surface.
We always see the same side of the moon. As you can see this means that the time to orbit the earth and the time to spin on it s axis are the same. Because of that its orbital speed increases or decreases depending on how close the moon is to our planet. However its rotational speed is always the same.
Source : pinterest.com