If gravity force is greatest when the moon is closest to Sun,why doesnt moon curve toward the Sun.?
484339
Because it's to far away.  And it's still in orbit with the Earth.  When an object moves it doesn't want to stop.  Therefore the Moon stays with us.
315226
because all of these facts can be proven scientifically...it is just a matter of fact that all bodies are attracted to one another with equal and opposite forces.... but the larger the mass the more attraction there is and with gravity the sun has enough mass to keep the earth falling toward it and the earth has enough mass to keep the moon falling toward it and these same forces keep us from flying off the earth.....if you took some physics and chemistry classes it may start to make sense to you but you may still question it until you have taken calculus classes that put out the math to prove it so if you are interested in this maybe you should pursue it more it is all very interesting
774166
The same thing that keeps an artificial satellite in orbit around Earth -- Earth's gravity tries to pull the moon towards it, but at the same time the moon is trying to fly off in a straight line. The two vectors cancel, so the moon ends up going around Earth.
312486
No, the apparent "phase" of the moon is relative to where you are on earth at a particular time and the moon's position in relation to the earth and the sun, it does not effect the earth's rotation.  That being said the moon has had an impact on the earth's rotation, and we can assume that it continues to exert the same gravitational forces it has through antiquity.  This isn't exactly true because the moon's orbit is actually getting larger at a rate of about 3.8 centimeters per year (negligible change)*. \n\nAs to stretching these facts to assume that it might affect the space-time continuum ever so slightly I have read several scholarly articles dealing with gravitational forces and their affect on time. Of all of these Stephen Hawking's were the easiest for me to understand and the most interesting to read.  You might want to check out his books "A Brief History of Time" and "The Universe in a Nutshell", both should be available at your local library.  Whether gravity exerted by the moon is strong enough to influence time on earth or not I’m not sure but I would assume so.  If I remember correctly the closer you are to a center of gravity the faster time passes relative to someone farther away.  The visible phases of the moon would still have nothing to do with the affect on time however.  \n\nThat was an interesting question, I hope my answer was of some use to you!\n\nRegards,\n\nArmus\n*thanks for correcting me on the orbital change Answer Guy.
661068
This sounds oddly like a homework question!  \n\n:-)\n\nYes, the moon does move farther back each year. It is measured by timing laser pulses fired from earth at the laser reflectors left on the moon by Apollo missions. They time how long it takes to travel to the moon and back, which gives the current distance.\n\nIf this is homework, you'll also want to include why this happens. Think about what happens on the earth that is influenced by the moon. If you live near the ocean, the answer will be obvious. If not, think about the tides. Raising that much water is work. And there must be a balancing change somewhere else. ("Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"  ---Google for that phrase and Newton)\n\nThe net result is the earth's day is slowly getting longer and the moon's rotation is getting slower, which means the moon gets a little farther away each year.\n\nHope this helps\n\nChuck Taylor\nhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/
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
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.
985857
GREAT QUESTION!\n\nThe answer is: In several ways.  First of all:\n\n1. Earth rocks!\n\nInstead of following a smooth Keplerian orbit around the Sun, Earth's own centroid performs an oscillatory motion about this "mean path."  By careful observations of the nearest PLANETS (but not the Moon --- why not?!) the amplitude of this Moon-induced "rocking" can be measured: Earth's centroid wobbles back and forth by about 3/4 of the Earth's own radius.  From this alone, one can deduce that the Moon's mass is ~ 1/80th that of the Earth.  \n\n[How?: From cunning arguments, the Greeks worked out long ago that the Moon was about 60 Earth radii distant; but when things are orbiting around one another with an equal but opposite force attracting them, it's the centroid of the COMBINED system that stays fixed, and the sizes of the "orbits" of both objects about their common centroid are inversely proportional to their masses --- just as though there's a giant Archimedes lever out there in space!  So that's how the "60" and the "3/4" combine to tell you that M_moon ~ M_earth/80.]  \n\nFurthermore, THAT is how it was already known in Victorian times that the gravitational acceleration at the Moon's surface must be ~1/6th that of our familiar 'g' at the Earth's surface.  \n\n[The ACTUAL PHYSICAL distance to the Moon is also needed to work this out, so that one can obtain its physical from its angular size.  You then plug the Moon's mass and physical size into Newton's Law of Gravity, applied at the Moon's surface.  Since the Greeks knew the Moon was ~60 Earth radii away, that actually meant measuring the Earth's size well!  \n\nWhen Newton made his own first "Moon check" on his law of gravity, it didn't seem to fit.  He was away home from Cambridge, in Lincolnshire, avoiding the Great Plague of 1666, and thus away from up-to-date books and other information.  But some time later, perhaps on returning to Cambridge, he learned of a new measurement of the Earth's size.  He then went back to his Moon test again, and found that when he'd corrected his earlier calculation, "it answered pretty nearly."  \n\nThat's how he first confirmed his Law of Gravity.  It tells you something about perseverance.]\n\nSo in the end, things like the acceleration at the Moon's surface were already known long before an astronaut demonstrated the "strength" of it by dropping objects on the surface of the Moon, on live television. \n\n2. The tides.\n\nAnother effect of the Moon's gravity on the Earth is of course the tides, though this is a more subtle and less direct (scientific) effect, as it's then the DIFFERENTIAL TIDAL FORCES (derived --- chuckle --- from differentiating the Moon's gravitational force at different places all over the Earth/Oceans etc.) that provide the forcing effect.  However, as we are riding on the surface of the Earth itself, we can ourselves more directly experience and observe this more subtle effect, through the tides, than we can the "rocking" produced by the stronger, main part of the attraction.\n\nI hope you get to study this some day; it's fascinating stuff!\n\n[Here's a funny thing that has always intrigued students at Starfleet Academy.  As viewed in a frame of reference in which the Sun is at rest --- the frame you use when you want to show the planets orbiting the Sun --- what do you think the path of the Moon looks like in space?  Does it spiral a lot, in overlapping circuits, around the Earth's path, or does it slowly and majestically make a gradually curving sinusoidal like motion, first curving in, then curving out (relative to the solar direction) about the essentially circular path of the Earth?  Would you believe that it always CURVES IN TOWARDS THE SUN?!!\n\nIf you know about gravity, acceleration, and the two separate orbital velocites
25792
I'm not sure what mean by "tilted," that typically refers to the axis of rotation. (The Earth's axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees from perpendicular with our Orbital plane.) The Moon is not tilted very much at all with respect to it's orbital plane around the Earth.\n\nDo you mean that the Moon always has the same side facing Earth? This is called tidal locking. Many of the satellites around Jupiter and Saturn are tidally locked. Mercury is almost tidally locked with the Sun.\n\nSolar tides (as opposed to the lunar tides) will determine the extent to which the Earth's rotation is slowed down so that Earth is tidally locked to the Sun. But Earth is big enough and far away enough that I don't think this will happen before the Sun enters the Red Giant phase and the Earth is (probably) destroyed.\n\nThe Earth's rotation is slowing down a bit, but that is due to the influence of the Moon.
686750
They actually do, but as previously stated the moon is much less massive than the Earth so we don't rotate as much compared to the moon. \n\nIncidentally: the Moon is not rotating around the Earth in a strict sense, it's actually spiraling away at about one inch per year, eventually the Moon will escape orbit. Just FYI.
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.
1040841
The reason is that the Moons rotational period is exactly the same as the period of revolution. But it is not a coincidence.\n\nTidal forces from the earth cause a torque on the rotation of the moon. Over time this has caused the moon to slow its rotation so that we only see the same side.\nOur Moon is not the only one like this.\nThe tidal forces of the sun have slowed mercury down, so that it revolves every 59 days. Eventually it will be like the moon and show the same face to the sun.\n\nIn much the same way the moons tidal forces are doing this to the earth as well, However being that the earth is much more massive than the moon, it has not slowed the rotation nearly as much as the earth has slowed the moons rotation.\n\nMost moons in the solar system do not do this (yet). But over  a very long period of time, more moons will be slowed and show only one side. but that will take billions of years.
339322
if any object following a straight or whatever path was to be attracted by some other larger body and put into and orbit then thru mathematical equations the orbit will always be elliptical(considering variable decceleration and velocity) that's why there is a doubt that moon was just a passing object that earth caught up..(coz it's orbit is circular and that it perfectly covers up the sun during eclipses....search for anomalies of the moon on google) so the orbit cannot be circular unless u "put" an object specifically into that shaped path...\n\nregards...\npretty rough explaination ..sorry cud not include the equations :)\n\nvivek
644891
No, because gravity is inflicted by the mass of an object... and we have a very massive object near by that will outweigh any gravity caused by a humble golf ball or a slightly proud bowling ball: it's called the Earth.\n\nBasically, gravity is a force of attraction, so a large object will attract a small object. That is what keeps the moon orbiting the Earth, and the planets orbiting the Sun. Even here on Earth objects are attracted to each other, but the Earth's gravity makes that force almost impossible to measure or detect.
496170
The moon, being much nearer to the earth than the sun, is the principal cause of tides. Because the force of gravity decreases with distance, the moon exerts a stronger gravitational pull on the side of the earth that is closer to it and a weaker pull on the side farther from it. The earth does not respond to this variation in strength because the planet is rigid—instead, it moves in response to the average of the moon’s gravitational attraction. The world’s oceans, however, are liquid and can flow in response to the variation in the moon’s pull. On the side of the earth facing the moon, the moon’s stronger pull makes water flow toward it, causing a dome of water to rise on the earth’s surface directly below the moon. On the side of the earth facing away from the moon, the moon’s pull on the oceans is weakest. The water’s inertia, or its tendency to keep traveling in the same direction, makes it want to fly off the earth instead of rotate with the planet. The moon’s weaker pull does not compensate as much for the water’s inertia on the far side, so another dome of water rises on this side of the earth. The dome of water directly beneath the moon is called direct tide, and the dome of water on the opposite side of the earth is called opposite tide.\n\nAs the earth rotates throughout the day, the domes of water remain aligned with the moon and travel around the globe. When a dome of water passes a place on the earth, that place experiences a rise in the level of the ocean water, known as high tide or high water. Between successive high tides the water level drops. The lowest water level reached between successive high tides is known as low tide or low water. Low and high tides alternate in a continuous cycle. The variations that naturally occur in the level between successive high tide and low tide are referred to as the range of tide. At most shores throughout the world, two high tides and two low tides occur every lunar day, the average length of a lunar day being 24 hours, 50 minutes, and 28 seconds. One of these high tides is caused by the direct-tide dome and the other by the opposite-tide dome. Two successive high tides or low tides are generally of about the same height. At various places outside the Atlantic Ocean, however, these heights vary considerably; this phenomenon, which is known as diurnal inequality, is not completely understood at the present time.\n\n© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
167554
It is highly unlikly that the earth will ever change the direction of rotation. A strong outside force must be present. But the rotation of the earth is slowing down over time due to the pull from the moon. dont worry if anything does change you will not be here to see it.
920704
It turns one revolution for every orbit it makes.  This happens because of tidal locking.  Basically that means the part of the moon closest to the earth gets pulled slightly more then the further side.  This means a slight bulge forms on the moon facing earth.  This side has more mass then other part of the moon thus is "heavier."  The earth's gravity then pulls on the buldge more then the rest of the moon making the moon slowly slow down or speed up in its rotation until the bulge always points towards the earth, thus one side always faces us.