Why Do We Only See One Side Of The Moon Nasa
Olivia Luz
This one will make your head spin.
Why do we only see one side 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. Have you ever noticed that when you look at the moon you are always looking at the same side. Since the moon rotates on its axis how can that be.
Now place a chair in the room and walk around it with out spinning. Nasa jpl caltech the far side of the moon looks very different than the near side see the first photo in this article. Our moon takes about 27 days to rotate around its own axis and 27 3 days to revolve around the earth. 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.
Tidal locking is the reason why do we see only one side of the moon. Quicktime open captioned. First the moon s orbit around earth is elliptical not circular so its rotation is sometimes ahead and sometimes behind its orbital motion. 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.
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The moon is directly illuminated by the sun and the cyclically. Only one side of the moon ever faces us because earth s force of gravity on it is not uniform. This means the moon rotates around its axis at almost t.
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