Why doesn't  the moon fall in the earth?
156537
The force of gravitational attraction that the earth exerts on the moon tending to pull the moon towards its center, is exactly balanced by the centrifugal force (that tends to take the moon away from the earth) on the moon due to its (approximately) uniform circular motion.\n\nMathematically,\n\nFg   =     Fc
642612
The moon is not geosynchronous.  Thus, its relative position in the sky changes rapidly.  Without manmade satellites in geosync. orbit, and with transponer facilities on the moon instead, people with satellite dishes would have to constantly reaim them to keep their signal.\n\nI do believe the moon always shows the same face towards Earth.
798233
The moon orbits the earth.  It does not 'rise'.  Look in any good newspaper to see what time it is visible in your area.  This information can be found in the weather section.
1097470
All Mass generates a gravitational pull.\n\nBecause the Moon is so close to the Earth, we come into range of its pull.\n\nWith the moon in pulling in a different direction to Earth's pull, there is a minute difference which is discernible in water because it is continually moving and has a very small mass in itself.\n\nSo when the Moon is above us, the gravitational pull of Earth is slightly less to that the tide level will increase.
435638
The reason why they are more prevelant on the near side of the moon is because the Earth shields that side from meteoric impacts.\n\nSince the same side always faces Earth, the other side doesn't have the protection of the massive earth to suck up all the inbound meteors.  Thus, there are more impacts on the far side of the moon and more craters and less maria.
856254
The attractive force of the "magnet earth" is much smaller than it's gravitational force. In fact it's negligibly small. Proof: put an iron object on the table, like a knife. Despite it being much more closer to the earth than the moon, it will not budge.
694597
The Moon essentially has no atmosphere, as its gravity is too weak to hold onto an atmosphere, given the Moon's temperature.\nThe Moon lacks a magnetic field.  There are some isolated areas with hints of magnetism, probably from nickel-iron asteroids impacting.\nThe regolith is thick enough that no one had drilled through it,. but probably a few hundred miles.\nChemically the Moon is depleted in hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and the elements from iron and higher.  It is enriched compared to Earth in calcium, silicon, magnesium, manganese, and others.  See wikipedia's essay on the Moon.\nPhysical state is solid.
958106
Since the Moon's gravity is only one sixth that of the Earth, much less fuel is needed to launch from the Moon than from the Earth, assuming the mass launched from each is the same.\nOf course the Moon would not be visible.  It does not make its own light, because its just a big rocky ball.
467325
Thatguy said:\n\n"because the moon is in orbit (read: freefall) everytime the moon tries to fall to the earth, the earth backs away from it and the cycle continues" \n\nwhich is complete nonsense. The earth "backs away"? orbit is the same thing as freefall? what?\n\nGravity is an attractive force that exists between each and every object that has mass. Think of it as being like magnetism.  The reason things orbit (eg the moon) is because the pull downwards towards the earth is almost exactly balanced by the pull away from Earth exerted by the centrifigal force of going around the earth & the gravitational pull of all that other stuff out there.  Orbits work because these forces are not exactly equal, so the tendency of something to fly off into space is just overcome by the attraction towards the large mass below, and the moon is, in fact, getting a little closer over time.  Eventually, like various pieces of space junk, the earth's gravitational pull will overcome the orbital force and the moon will crash into a field in Nebraska, where a farmer will claim an alien came out of it.\n\nclear as mud
295462
Anything with mass has gravity - the bigger the mass the bigger the gravity.  The moon which is quite small compared to earth has much less gravity - look at the footage of the sapcewalks.  Larger planets such as Jupiter or Saturn have much higher gravity - probably so much so that you'd be crushed under your own weight.\n\nThe moon's gravity affects the earth (most noticably in the tides) and to a much lesser extent the other bodies in the solar system affects the earth.
104556
No.\n\nThe distance between the Moon and the Sun is always changing.  Sometimes the Moon is between the Earth & the Sun, and sometimes it is on the other side of the Earth from the Sun.\n\nAll because the Moon is orbiting the Earth.
282289
Even if the moon is really shifting away from earth every year, the total distance it shifts is nearly negligible (it is something infinitesimal). So at first glance even it seems worrying, we are not going to loose our moon in any near future.
135962
Actually, the moon does have an atmosphere, and EXTEAMLY thin, tiny, very small, negligible atmosphere.\n\nThe chances of getting hit are miniscule, there is virtually no risk.  You can see the moon of covered with impact craters, but remember, these happened over the course of billions of years.  The chances are very slim, you would have to VERY unlucky to be hit.
837272
atmosphere is created when gravity holds all the gas molecules around it, like earth's gravity is holding all the nitrogen/oxygen/water vapor/etc around it.  since the moon doesn't have as much gravity, it can't hold in the same atmosphere.  the atmosphere and humidity around a planet also absorb and hold heat.  when the sun sets on earth, the temperature doesn't change drastically, even though the sun's not providing heat anymore, because the atmosphere is hanging on to the heat it absorbed during the day.  if there is less atmosphere to absorb the heat, once the sun goes down the temperature will drop drastically.\n\nI'm not sure about the craters, but my guess is that the moon is more cratered because there's no erosion.  on a planet like earth, water and wind constantly wash across the surface and erode any irregularities like craters, so the surface is relatively smooth.  on the moon, there's no water and no wind (no atmosphere = no wind), so there's no erosion to smooth out the craters.
882017
No one who has answered so far got it right.  The answer is TRUE, and the reason is because the moon rotates on its axis in exactly the same amount of time it takes it to make one revolution around the earth.  No one seems to get this.
1085967
I don't think anyone has done the math to figure out how quickly it would happen but with out the moon the Earth's rotation on it's axis would not be stable where it is now.  If that got out of wack we would have some serious weather problems.  It's the tilt of the Earth not the distance from the sun that makes the difference between summer and winter.  So if that wobble that has the the northern hemisphere facing the sun in the summer and leaning away at 23 some degrees in the winter was screwed up we'd probably all die.  There's a good move called, odly enough< If we Had no Moon.  It's from the discovery channel, and you can buy it or just check their TV schedule, it comes on once or twice a year.
88905
The moon is in orbit around the earth. duh! but to answer your question you have to think that as the moon orbits it is orbiting the center of the planet. The earth turns also but it is quite unaffected by the moon, the two have nothing to do with each other. As you might know the earth is tilted some 23 degress from it's orbit around the sun. This tilting gives us our seasons. During winter the earth is tilted away from the sun and because of this sun sits low in the sky ( northern lattitudes of course). In the summer it is the opposite. Anyway the moon also has a tilt to it compared to earth's tilt. As it goes around and round we see it in different parts of it's seasons. Of course the moon takes only 28 days to go through it's year so not much is happening, but it explains why the moon seems to move. One more thing the moon rises in the east. Perhaps you meant the moon seems to rise more north or south- it does both