does the moon spin?????
599379
Yes, the moon spins (or rotates) once for each revolution (orbit).  This happens because the moon is "tidally locked" to the earth.  \n\nThe moon exerts tidal forces on the earth because it pulls harder on the part of the earth closer to the moon and less hard on the part of the earth father from the moon.  The result is tides--the ocean bulges up on the side close to the moon because of the harder pull and actually bulges up away from the moon on the far side because of the weaker pull.\n\nThe earth also exerts tidal fores on the moon.  The moon has no oceans (and never did), but the solid rock of the moon bulged.  The moon used to spin much faster, but bulging and rotating causes friction, which slowed the moon's rotation until it keeps one face toward the earth.  Thus, the bulge is fixed in one place on the moon and no more friction!
236149
The moon spins about an axis. The axis is almost perpendicular to the plane of the moons orbit around the earth. The period of spin (time to complete one rotation about the spin axis) is equal to the period of one revolution around the earth.\n\nThe result is we see one side of the moon.\n\nFor many people this answer is not suffice to understand.\nImagine a cubical building in a plain ground. The four vertical walls are marked A,B,C,D. Imagine the building to be the moon and we are standing infront of the wall marked A. Let us go round the building to see the other walls in the order of ABCD. When we have finished quarter round we can have the full view of the wall B. But imagine that the building rotates itself such that when we finished quarter round it also has rotated quarter round about itself. We will see only the wall A. If the things continue like this we can never see the other walls.When we complete one round the building completes one round so always we see only the wall A.\nDue to librations actually we can see 59% of the moon instead of 50%
105361
Yes, this is called the tide.  The moon exerpts a gravatitional force on the Earth that causes the water to rise and fall.\n\nRead more at:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide
795934
no, becasue there's no wind on the moon, yet the flag was waving. \nalso all one would have to do to prove it did happen was photograph the landing site through a telescope.\nthe rover didn't fly off into space did it. if it's still there and you want find out for yourself then break out your telescope and find it.\nnot to get your hopes up, but you wont find anything.
877244
I saw this live on TV when it happened.  The flag did move.  Armstrong and Aldrin had to stand it up.  When they stood it up, they started it swinging.  It is swung like a pendulum.  And, because there is no atmosphere on the moon, there is no air resistance to slow it down.  Simple science.
60264
Our moon is locked in what is known as a geo-synchronous orbit. For millions of years the angular momentum has stablized the moon to provide very little loss of energy between earth and moon. This does not account for the influences that the moon has upon our oceans though. (Tides) Our solar system has "moved about" for many millions of years to allow for efficient energy transfers between baryonic masses.  This is not unlike a person who sit's in a chair and move's about to become more comfortable.  Peace
473093
I don't know(we don't know) if it really did land on moon or was it the biggest fool's day prank. But we are certainly required to give an answer when we are asked in examination papers.We cannot(unfortunately) answer with a question- hmmm.........so you really think it did land???\n(I wonder if Sherlock Holmes can help)
719363
Yes, it's true. Think about it.....you have a fluid that is on a rotating sphere. If you take this fluid and move it from the upper portion of the rotating sphere to the lower part, don't you think something has to change?\n\nGranted, the dynamics are extremely subtle but the effect is there. There are a lot of various forces at work due to the rotation of the earth. Performing the experiment is very difficult because any aberrations in the fluid causes error or doubt about what mechanism is actually causing the spiraling fluid flow.\n\nTake a clear bowl of water and stir it so it rotates.....then lift it up and look at it from underneath. It rotates in the opposite direction.....right? That's similar to what's going on, except the forces on the water are what causes the change in rotation. You are in essence turning the bowl upside down when you move it from one hemisphere to another.\n\nSimplified explanation, but sufficient I suppose. Hope it helps.\n\n:)
493154
My Mother-in-Law is convinced that the phases of the moon and changes in the wind predict the weather pattern until the moon starts to next wax/wane.\n\nAs a scientist I know that this is twaddle.\n\nThe trouble is, she has an uncanny knack of being right.
187789
In fact, million years ago, the moon's rotation is not exactly in sync with it's revolution, it's rotation was faster back at those days and the rotation is not synced. It is because of the relational effect of the gravity of earth to moon that slowed down the moon to a stop and synced its rotation to earth's revolution. It is not purely a coincidental as a lot of moons of other planets is also "phase locked" to the planet's it's revoluting
310291
Kind of, but not quite.  The Earth is pulled by the Moon's gravity just as the Moon is pulled by the Earth's gravity.  The center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system (called the barycenter) is actually inside the Earth, but not at the center of the Earth, so its better to say that the Earth wobbles rather than revolving around a point.\n\nPluto and Charon actually do revolve around each other, and around the barycenter which is between the two objects.
967123
It does! It is going slower and slower all the time, due to the gravitational drag of the moon. Eventually, there will be tidal lock, and the moon will be much further away. And you and I will be a billion years dead.\nSee, all this happens on a PLANETARY time scale. We can't perceive it, except with very very sensitive devices that have only become available fairly recently.\nAs to why it spins ... maybe its happy? \nNo no no. It spins because it retains the orbital movement from when it coalesced into a solid mass. At the core, there is a gravitational singularity, and all the matter that makes up our planet is/was in orbit around it, but reached equilibrium in the collapse, forming the "solid" planetary mass.\nWhat astronomers are only now coming to realize (having deduced that there is a lot more matter in the universe than is readily observable) is that there are gravitational singularities at the core of virtually every large-scale body - planets, stars, and galaxies. \nThe whole notion of planets "coalescing" WITHOUT such a singularity is absurd, even in a Newtonian universe.\nSo, if you dug a deep enough hole, you would find a hole. Neat-o, huh?
25342
Think rally hard. The moon has gravity just like the earth. Have you ever seen a flag on earth stand that straight? They had a metal pole across the top and the grainy video make it look as if it is fluttering.
254661
It's called gravitational friction.  It's causing the earth's rotation to slow down.  The second link has a cool graph showing how much earth's rotation has changed, not just due to the moon.  According to that link it will take billions of years for a day to last twice as long.  So don't expect one side of the earth to get stuck facing the moon before our sun burns out.  The third link says earth is spinning 1/3 slower now than it was 900 million years ago.
414408
Yes, the radius of the moon's orbit is currently increasing by about 3.8 cm (about 1.5 inches) every year.  This happens because the moon raises tides on the Earth.  Because the Earth rotates faster than the moon orbits the Earth, the tidal "bulge" of the Earth on the side nearest the moon actually leads, or is in front of, the position of the moon in its orbit (see diagrams in sources given below). That "extra" mass of the Earth's tidal bulge acts to accelerate the moon in its orbit, increasing its angular momentum, and causing the moon's orbit to "spiral out" over time.  Because the angular momentum of the Earth-moon system must be conserved, the Earth's angular momentum must decrease to balance the increase in the moon's momentum, slowing the Earth's rotation rate by a bit (currently, about 15 microseconds/year).  \n\nThese rates have changed over geologic time because the position of the tidal bulge relative to the line connecting the Earth and moon depends on, among other things, the arrangement of continents and oceans on Earth.  These affect the friction affecting the tidal bulge, and therefore its velocity relative to the Earth's rotational velocity.\n\nThe energy of the Earth-moon system must also be conserved, and because the moon gets further from the Earth, its potential energy increases.  Consequently, it's kinetic energy must decrease by an amount exactly equal to the increase in potential energy.  Because the kinetic energy of the moon (or any other object) is proportional to the square of the velocity, the moon's velocity in its orbit is decreasing.\n\nThis process will continue until the moon's orbital period and the Earth's rotational period are equal, at which point the moon and Earth will be "tidally locked", with the same side of each body facing the other body at all times.\n\nThe story doesn't stop here, though.  The Earth-moon system loses angular momentum to the (Earth/moon)-sun system, resulting in an increase in the distance of the center of mass of the Earth+moon from the sun.  This is occurring today, but is a much smaller effect than the lunar tidal effect discussed above.  Once the Earth and moon are tidally locked, though, it will become the dominant effect. As a consequence, the moon's orbital radius will slowly *decrease* until the moon gets somewhere within the Roche limit, at which point (assuming the sun has not become a red giant and expanded beyond the orbit of the Earth by then!) the moon will break apart, most likely forming a ring system around the Earth.\n\nThe Roche limit is the distance from a parent body at which the difference between the gravitational force on a a satellite's near side and a satellite's far side exceeds the gravitational self attraction of the satellite.  Because the moon is made of rock, it has some cohesive strength (i.e., the moon is not just held together by self-gravitation) that will allow it to come within the true Roche limit before being disrupted.
627332
First of all i would like to say that you are some kind of good thinker.. well for 4 years old, this kind of question may too complex for you. But i try to answer it for our knowledge.\n\nWell the moon is not just go down when the sun is up. The world is rotating itself, while the world is rotating around the sun. In the same time, the moon is rotating around the earth and the sun. When you are at any part of the earth expecially near to the equator, you will see some kind of nice organized pattern of when sun is out, the moon is gone, otherwise vise versa. \n\nWell, actually this is not the true. The moon is still there rotating around the earth in 24 hour time, but when the part of the earth where get alots of sun shine, the brighness of the moon will dissphere like you shine a touch in a good shinine day. The light from the touch will not seen as in the dark. But we cannot say that the ligh is gone. The light is still there but, due to the brigher light of the sun (higher cendela - unit for light), the reflaction light of moon is not seen.\n\nThere are some infomation that i can help you. It's good to think!!!
1087183
The moon has a side that always faces us! That's not always filled with light though. That's why we have phases of the moon.