Why do we only see one side of the Moon?

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weixing
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Post by weixing »

Hi,
The Moon rotates almost once in the same time it takes to orbit around the Earth, so we only see one side of the Moon.

To simulate this yourself, move around an object while always facing the object. You'll find that as you completed one circle around the object, you also make one complete rotation.

Have a nice day.
Yang Weixing
:mrgreen: "The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." :mrgreen:
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kingkong
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Post by kingkong »

see tidal lock from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

Image
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Astroboy
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Post by Astroboy »

eh.. i thought the reason was because the moon does not rotate and therefore explains why more craters on the "space" facing side, then the "earth" facing side. That's just what I got to know.. :)
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kingkong
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Post by kingkong »

aboy, look at the animated gif above again... the red ball represents the earth, the green/blue ball represents the moon...

can you see that the moon is rotating?

amazing but true. science is stranger than fiction. it's just physics...
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