Does the moon rotate as it orbits the earth? This video will demonstrate what it looks like if the moon rotates, and also if it doesn’t rotate as it goes around the Earth.
This is a follow-up to a video/post I made a while back to explain why we see one face of the moon that still seems to be causing some confusion. So I’ve updated the animation to try and show how the moon would look if it rotated, and if it didn’t.
Tidal Locking
The Moon is actually rotating on its own axis. But it is also orbiting the Earth. Over time, the gravity of the Earth has slowed the moon’s rotation down.
This is known as tidal locking.
What this means is that although it’s rotating, the Moon always keeps the same face facing towards the Earth. This is down to two important facts:
1. The moon rotates on its own axis, and it takes approximately 28 days to make one full rotation
2. The moon orbits around the earth and takes approximately 28 days to make one full orbit.
As you can see, this means that the time to orbit the Earth and the time to spin on it’s axis are the same. So from Earth, the moon always shows the same side.
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