Would we see the earth rise and set if we were standing on the moon?

Answer 1

Short answer: No. Standing on the moon, since the same side of the moon always faces earth, the earth sort of "just hangs there." The "earthrise" image mentioned in another answer is taken from ORBIT as you zoom _around_ the moon. But standing still, -- no.

HOWEVER... there's a tricky bit. The moon "wobbles back and forth" you can see this libration in motion at

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991108.html

-- if you were standing on the lunar horizon, over the course of a lunar month, the earth would move around a bit. By carefully choosing your position, you could have it bob up and down on the horizon. It's not rising and setting like the moon does on earth, but it is there... Tricky huh?

Explanation at

http://www.idialstars.com/luli.htm

you can see libration in action over the course of a year here...

http://www.pixheaven.net/geant/0601-0612.html

Answer 2

The reason that the Moon rises and sets is that the Earth is spinning on its axis once a day.
The Moon also spins on its axis, but it does so much more slowly, because over millions of years it has become locked into an orbital reasonance with the Earth. As a result, it turns on its axis in the same time it takes to orbit the Earth, and the effect of this is that it keeps the same face turned towards the Earth.
You can visualise this by imagining a friend of yours spinning around whilst staying in the same place. They represent the Earth. If you walk in a circle around your friend whilst looking at them all the time, then you are representing the Moon. Your friend will be able to see you at some times and not at others, whilst you will be able to see them all the time.
So if you are on the Moon, on the side that always faces towards the Earth, you will always see it hanging there in the sky. Over a period of a month you will see the Earth go through phases, but its position will not change.
Actually that's not 100% accurate, because the Moon's orbit isn't a perfect circle, so sometimes it is further away and moves more slowly. The result is that the Earth will move about just a little, though you'd hardly notice it unless you were at a place where the Earth was very close to the horizon, where you might see it moving up and down, but it won't move from one side of the sky to the other.

Answer 3

No, from the moon, the Earth would not rise or fall. It just turns in place.

Answer 4

No, because the moon shows all the time the same side to the earth.

Answer 5

If you are stationary on the moon, the earth will be stationary in the lunar sky. If you move to a different location on the moon, the earth will then appear in a different location, but remain stationary at that site.

Answer 6

Yes, there is actually a very famous picture of this occouring as one of the United States' lunar capsuls emerged from the dark side of the Moon.

It's called 'Earth Rise.'