Why only one side of the Moon is seen?

Question

Please think LOGICALLY and make some simple mathematical calculations before you answer; and consider that if the Moon really rotates, all its sides should be seen on a regular basis, as well as different sides of the Moon should be seen from different parts of the Earth and throughout the different seasons and hours of the day. OH i for sure know the common explanation that the Moon rotates the same speed as it orbits the Earth but such a coinscidence is about 1:10.000.000 to happen assuming that there are millions of planets and satellites in our Universe, and they each have their own unique speed. Very, very strange indeed.

Answer 1

By the way,what is on the other side of sun.

Answer 2

The only thing I cannot understand is why you answered your own question - a total waste.
The one thing I do understand is that it is a fact that the moon goes through exactly one revolution every time it completes an orbit of the earth. That's why you can always see the man in the moon! It is not a coincidence. It simply happens that way. I will tell you this - and you have probably heard it before - THE EARTH IS UNIQUE!

The mathematical explanation involves a lot of gibberish and weird symbols but it generally says that the diameter(D/m) divided by the mass(d/v) of the moon is in the correct proportion to the gravitational field strength((g) which is 9.8N) of the earth - which is then compared to the distance of the moon from the earth. The second part of this lengthy equation determines the moon's tangential velocity and compares it to the length of its orbital path. The equality of the entire formula is 1, which means that the moon's rotation causes the same side to always face the earth.
Did you get all that?

Little known fact:
This equation also revealed that the moon was moving away from the earth at approximately 1.6 inches per year - nothing when you consider the tens of thousands of miles away the moon already is. I know what you're tinking but the answer is no - the moon will not suddenly fly off into deep space - at least not in the next thousand years(if we even exist until then)

Answer 3

I think this should answer all of your questions:

Because the Moon is also orbiting around the Earth. If the Moon didn't rotate about its axis, here's what would happen. One side would be facing us right now; two weeks later, when the Moon has gone halfway in its orbit around the Earth, the opposite side of the Moon would be facing us. Here's a picture (the Earth and the Moon should really be spheres, of course, not squares):

E A R T H
E A R T H moon
E A R T H moon
E A R T H moon
E A R T H

After the Moon has gone halfway in its orbit around the Earth, if the Moon didn't spin on its axis, the picture would look like this:

_____E A R T H
moon E A R T H
moon E A R T H
moon E A R T H
_____E A R T H

Notice that we on the Earth would now see the opposite side of the Moon (the Earth sees the "m" of "moon" in the first picture, but it sees the "n" of the word "moon" in the second picture).

What really happens is that the Moon is rotating on its axis; it spins once a month, exactly the same length of time as it takes to orbit the Earth. So, after half an orbit around the Earth, the Moon has also spun one-half of a revolution about its axis. The correct second picture looks like this:

_____E A R T H
noom E A R T H
noom E A R T H
noom E A R T H
_____E A R T H

Now the Moon has rotated 180 degrees, so the Earth still sees the "m" of "moon".

Here's another picture. After one-quarter of an orbit (about one week after the original picture), the Moon has rotated 90 degrees on its axis, and it looks something like this:

n n n
o o o
o o o
m m m
E A R T H
E A R T H
E A R T H
E A R T H
E A R T H

Once again, the "m" side of "moon" is facing the Earth, but it took an appropriate amount of rotation of the Moon about its axis to keep the "m" side facing the Earth.

So the Moon rotates about its own axis in the same length of time that it takes to orbit the Earth. That's what keeps the same side of the Moon always facing the Earth.

Answer 4

Without using mathematics at all it be reasonbly explained. Note that Luna is not the only body which is in lock-step with its parent: Mercury works the same way with Sol. The reason is that the gravity of the parent body is so much greater than that of the sattelite, the sattelite's spin is gradually dragged to a halt, resulting in only one side facing the parent body. The drag of the sattelite's gravity is essentially insignificant on the parent body, though on Earth the Tides are caused by the Moon, and there is some evidence that the female cycle is also partially regulated by it.

As a note: you can actually see about 59% of The Moon's surface from the Earth during the course of a terrestrial year, as The Moon's orbit is not circular, and it wobbles just a bit in its path.

Answer 5

The part you are leaving out is that many physicists think the moon was created from the earth in a large impact, which then balled up into the moon over a surprisingly short time.
Gravity locks the moon in orbit with us, and it is not that unusual. All of the planets and their moons have stayed spinning at rotating at roughly the same speeds (no resistence in space). The difference is that other moons were formed as SMALL PLANETS that were captured by the other planets. Our moon has NO iron core, and since it was created from a clumped up ring spinning around the earth (unusual), the gravity disruption and space distortion from spinning of the earth PULLS the debris into a ball, and it stays rotating in that system until something stops it.
It is a "coincidence", but the only real coincidence is that the side of the moon you see "happened" to be the side that was facing you at the completion of the moon;s creation.

Answer 6

You obviously know the WHY for only one side of the moon being visible from Earth, but it's the odds against such a phenomenon happening that bother you. The conditions that cause this to happen are TEMPORARY!

When the moon first formed from a great collision between Earth and another planet-sized object some 4- or 5-billion years ago it was only about 14,000 miles away. At that time, if anyone had been around, they probably would have seen both sides of the moon from Earth.

Also, since its formation the moon has been receding from Earth at some 3.8 cm per year. A time will come when more and more of the lunar surface will be visible.

All of the above also effects solar eclipses. We just happen to live in an era when the moon is precisely the right distance away from Earth for its disc to periodically cover the disc of the sun.

Answer 7

The rotational period of the moon is the same as it's orbital period. It makes one revolution per orbit, and this means that the same face is toward the earth continuously.

As to WHY the orbital period and rotational periods are the same, I'm not certain.

You can show this process by using two circles or balls. If you place one in the center, and one some distance from it,. and you move the outer one around, you'll find that if you rotate the outer one clockwise, the same number of degrees that you orbit the center one, the same face will be present always.

The reason that the earth sees the same face always can be shown by rotating the center circle, representing Earth. As it turns, all parts are facing the same portion of the moon. The only way they could see other sides is if the moon varied from the synchronized orbital / revolutionary period.

I hope this helps.

Answer 8

Size
The moon, Earth's only natural satellite, is large as moons go. It is fifth in diameter among planetary satellites, more than two-thirds as large as Mercury, and more than three times the diameter of the largest asteroid. It is, in fact, over one-fourth the size of the earth, with a diameter of 2160 miles (3476 kilometers).

Distance
Since the moon is a relatively near neighbor, we can measure its distance easily by geometrical methods. The average is 238,857 miles (384,403 kilometers).

Brightness
Next to the sun, the full moon is the brightest object in the heavens. However, its surface is rough and brownish and reflects light very poorly. In fact, the moon is about the poorest reflector in the solar system. The amount of light reflected by a celestial object is called the albedo (Latin: albus, white). The moon relects only 7% of the sunlight that falls upon it, so the albedo is 0.07.

Phases
The phases of the moon are caused by the relative positions of the earth, sun, and moon. The moon goes around the earth, on average, in 27 days 7 hours 43 minutes.

The sun always illuminates the half of the moon facing the sun (except during lunar eclipses, when the moon passes thru the earth's shadow). When the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the earth, the moon appears "full" to us, a bright, round disk. When the moon is between the earth and the sun, it appears dark, a "new" moon. In between, the moon's illuminated surface appears to grow (wax) to full, then decreases (wanes) to the next new moon.

The edge of the shadow (the terminator) is always curved, being an oblique view of a circle, giving the moon its familiar crescent shape. Because the "horns" of the moon at the ends of the crescent are always facing away from the setting or rising sun, they always point upward in the sky. It is fun to watch for paintings and pictures which show an "impossible moon" with the horns pointed downwards.



The Far Side
I see the moon,
The moon sees me,
God bless the moon,
And God bless me.
- Nursery Rhyme
People often refer to "the dark side of the moon", but there is no such thing. The sun shines on all sides of it in turn. However, there is a "far side of the moon" which is never seen from the earth. Over the eons, the gravitational forces of the earth have slowed down the moon's rotation about its axis until the rotational period exactly matches the revolution period about the earth.

You can see this effect by using two round objects such as softballs. Hold one of the balls stationary, to represent the earth. Now move the other ball around the "earth" without twisting your wrist. You will see that people on the "earth" would see all sides of the "moon". However, if you slowly spin the "moon" on its trip around the "earth", you will see that you can time it so only one side of the "moon" is ever seen from the "earth". That's why the features you see on the face of the moon never change.

Answer 9

This didn't happen by coincedence, it gradually happened over time. The same thing will eventually happen to the earth, so that only one side of the earth will be visible from the moon (don't worry, that's not anytime soon!). Here's a great explanation I found:

"Since Earth's gravity is much stronger than the Moon's, the tides from the Earth on the Moon are much stronger than the Moon's tides on the Earth. The Moon has tidal bulges just like the Earth, and so it too was slowed by the Earth's pull on its nearer bulge. Eventually, the Moon's rotation was locked so that it took the same time to spin once on its axis as it takes to go around the Earth. This is why we always see the same face of the Moon! And this happened to the Moon before the Earth because the Earth's tides are so much stronger."

This will make a lot more sense if you read the entire page, it really explains a lot.

Answer 10

The moon is the earth’s only natural satellite. Its average distance from the earth is 384,403 km.

Rotation - an object spinning around its axis.
Revolve - one object circling another.
Center mass* - an objects geometrical center.
Center gravity* - the center of an objects weight

The earth's center of gravity and center of mass are at the exact same location. The moon, however, due to its oblong shape, has a center of gravity separate from its center of mass. The moon's weight is distributed in such a way that it's heavier side faces earth.
The moon does indeed rotate. However, it rotates slowly, about once every 28 days. This rotational rate matches the rate at which the moon revolves around the earth.

Its revolution period around the earth is the same length and direction as its rotation period, which results in the moon always keeping one side turned toward the earth and the other side turned away from the earth. This type of motion is called synchronous rotation. The side turned away from the earth is called the moon’s dark side, even though it is lit half of the time. The moon’s sidereal period of revolution is about 27.32 days long. This means that a line drawn through the center of the earth and the moon would point to the same star every 27.32 days. Due to slight variations in the orbital velocity of the moon, over a 30 year period, 59% of the moon’s surface is made visible. This is known as libration.

If the moon changed its rate of rotation or revolution at all, we on earth, would see all of its faces. It due to this correlation between the moon's rotational and revolving rate, that we always see the same side of the moon from earth.

Answer 11

there are several conspiracy theories that are put down by the governent. we only see one side of the moon because on the other side of the moon, there are things going on like construction of the "new world".

also another theory is that aliens have a plant on the other side of the moon.

how come when man first landed on the moon and then quickly returned back to earth without going back again to maybe try to make use of the large amount of space on the moon.

Its been theorized also that when humans landed on the moon, the aliens scared the living crap out of them and thus ever since we have not made any plans on going back, which would be a smart choice with all the overpopulation on earth today and in the future.

things arent what they seem.