General Education the Moon Is the Natural

General Education

The moon is the natural satellite of the earth. The moon's rotational period around the earth is the same with its revolution period causing one side of the moon to always turn towards the earth while the other side turns away from the sun. Thus, this paper will explain the reasons why the same side of the moon is always seen as well as why the moon fails to rise at the same time each night.

Reasons why the same side of the moon is always seen

What makes us see the same side of the moon is the tidal locking that causes a synchronous rotational. The rotation of the moon takes place very slow making at most one turn on its axis at the same time it revolving around the earth. Most people have been making references concerning the dark side of the moon. It is true that only one face of the moon is visible to us and the other invisible side is permanently rotated away from us. People usually see the same side of the moon because the moon rotates on its axis as it goes around the earth. Both the moon and the earth rotate at the same time making the moon to always keep the same face towards the earth. On the contrary, if the moon fails to rotate, only the far side of the moon that moves around the planet in an orbit would be seen (Stevenson & Pearson, 2006). The sphere of the moon always faces the Earth since the rotational period is closely the same with the orbital period. The other interesting reason is that, a half surface of the moon can be observed from the Earth given that the orbit of the moon is elliptical, and the speed of the moon's orbit can travel while increasing or decreasing and this depends on how close it is to the planet.

Reasons why the moon fails to rise at the same time each night

The moon fails to rise at the same time each night because the moon at all the time is moving and orbiting the Earth. At each single day, the moon is in a different position in respect to Earth and Sun. When all these are taking place, the stars in the sky standstill, but they tends to look like they are moving due to spinning of the earth. The moon travels from West to East and takes about one month (27.3 days) covering 360 degrees to the East to complete a full circle around the earth. This means that, on the next night, the moon will be located at 13.18 degrees (360 degrees / 27.3 days) which is on the East from the previous night's location. Many people have been curious on why the moon is in a different place every night. The reason is that, it takes the earth 24 hours to spin once . From the point-of-view, this shows that, the sky and everything within it are able to move around us only once for every 24 hours. If someone becomes keen enough, it may be possible for him/her to watch how the moon moves as well as seeing the change in the distance between the two (David, 2001).