Did the Moon ever rotate>?

Question

The moon being a sphere seems an obvious candidate for rotation. It is also pock marked by meteor hits, it seems equally over all the surface, again suggesting that the earth has not shielded it from bombardment at some stage in it’s existence.
My question is did the moon ever rotate and when and why did it stop rotating.?

There has not been any comment about the earth shielding the moon from meteorite hits. As it is stationary to our observation. One would expect the dark side to be more pock marked.

There has not been any answer to my query about the main thrust of my question, that is .. did the moon ever rotate such that an observer on earth would see it doing so? .. Since photographs of the dark side seem to show an equal distribution of meteorite hits as the osvsered side suggesting that it was not always shielded by the earth; again suggesting that it did rotate and thereby suffered hits from outer space.
Finally, if it did rotate, when did it become stationary to an earth observer?

Thank you folks for all the information. Some I had not come acoss before. However, non of the responses addressed my question.
There has not been mentioned in any reply so far the fact that the moon is eclipsed (occulted) by the earth since it’s rotation is in sync with the earth. Therefore the face that we observe is shielded from outer space and from some meteorite hits. One would expect that the dark side being exposed to outer space would receive more hit’s, yet photographs do not show this. Again suggesting that at some stage the moon was not locked or in sync with earth and would be seen to be rotating. No need to repeat all previous comments, They are well known. Just the answer please .. Would the moon be seen to spin or rotate to an observer.
I await with eager antisipation

Answer 1

The celestial body, sometimes also called Luna, that is the only natural satellite of the Earth. The Moon is in synchronous rotation (i.e., it is "spin-locked") with the Earth, and so always keeps the same face pointed towards the planet. The far-side of the Moon (also called the "dark side") was therefore completely unknown until it was photographed by space probes. The Moon's rotation and orbital periods are therefore the same, days. Moon phases occur with a period of 29.530587 days (the "synodic period").

The exact value is 29.530589 days, or 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 3 seconds. However, there is a great deal of variation in the actual time for a given lunation (the time between two successive new moons).
The orbit of the Moon has a 5° inclination to the ecliptic plane which results from perturbations caused by the Sun. Eclipses (either lunar or solar) occur when the line of nodes points towards Earth. This periodicity is called the Saros cycle and has a period of 18 years and 11.3 days. The Moon's inclination to the Earth's equator therefore varies between 18 and 28 degrees.

As a result of torques produced by the Earth's oblateness, the rotation of the Moon is being gradually slowed, and the lost angular momentum causes the Moon to recede 3 cm a year away from the Earth.

The Moon is deficient in siderophiles and volatiles (Na, K, Rb). It is enriched in refractories (Ca, Al, Ti, Ba, Sr, U, Th, and the rare earth elements). Principle moment of inertia measurements indicate that the crustal thickness varies from 40 km and the poles to 150 km on the far side. A seismic velocity of 7.7 km-1 continues from km, the deepest depth of penetration of seismic energy from man-made objects. The velocity is appropriate for pyroxene or plagioclase. If it is the latter, the crust must extend further down to an unknown depth.

Answer 2

I too have always wondered why the moon always shows the same side to us. the answer is yes it dose rotate, otherwise
every 15 days we would see the othe side as it orbits around the Earth. according to science,objects circling
around each other, tend to slow each others rotation down. They didn't say why but I would like to know how it's done.
They claim that after the Earth and moon were formed, a day on earth was 6 hours,they didn't say what the moon was.
The moon was very close at that time and they each had a lot of affect on each other. The moon being smaller eventually stopped spinning to the point that it shows the same side to us all the time.The Earth slowed,by the moon's influence,to once every 24 hours. The Earth having much more mass,
didn't slow as much as the smaller moon. In other words, if they were each the same size as the moon, they would both be rotating as they circled around each other,but both showing the same sides to each other. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

This is edited for clarifying you again: 1. In relative to any observer on earth Moon does not rotate. 2. The rear side of moon has similar / equal craters as near side because it was hit when it was not under protection from earth. It did not get such protection when it was rotating faster than today. Even now Earth can not protect all the meteor showers heading to the near side of Moon.
For more info I am retaining the previous answer:Even today Moon rotates but it is face-locked with Earth today because the Moon's self rotation speed matches with the speed of its revolution around Earth. But it was certainly different in the past. In fact the distance between the Moon and Earth was not same earlier. Then Moon was showing its all sides to Earth before this stabilized situation thus getting exposed for bombardment. The different theories of origin of Moon would offer different answers for this question.

Answer 4

The Moon does rotate, it just shows the same face toward the Earth all the time. Each astronomical body has a gravitational field such that, for a range of distances, the gravitational forces work together in such a way as to cause 'captured rotation' - i.e. the satellite rotates about its own axis at the same rate as it orbits its host. This is the effect we see with our own Moon; although the Moon still 'wobbles' in its axial rotations and actually shows us (though not all at the same time, of course) about 59% of its total surface area. Perhaps, even from your point of view, it hasn't quite stopped rotating after all!

I hope this helps.

p.s. Many thanks - this will be the answer which finally takes me out of Level 1 on the scoreboard!

Answer 5

Sorry, it does rotate/spin and as everyone else has said, it spins at the same rate it orbits the earth. One rotation approximately every 28 days, hence the same side of the moon always faces the earth. Try doing an experiment with two spherical objects and imitate the motion of the earth and moon. Put a mark on your moon model and track its movement. All will become clear.

Answer 6

The moon does rotate - it does so at such a rate that the Moon always exposes the same half to the Earth. The motion takes place from West to East in the same direction as the rotation and the revolution of the Earth. The luner revolution period takes 27.32 mean solar days which is also called a sidereal month.

Answer 7

Technically it does rotate, one rotation every orbit, leading to it always keeping the same face towards Earth.

You're right, its spherical shape suggests it did once rotate, but I don't know how long ago.

Being a fairly large object, close in orbit to a very large object means that the Earth's gravitational pull is significantly greater on the near side of the moon than on the far side. This differential force on either side of the moon set up a braking effect on the moon's rotation, which has slowed its rotation to nil (relative to the Earth's surface.)

The moon exerts a similar effect on the Earth, and the Earth's spin is slowing, increasing the day length by about 1 hour every 200 million years.

All the time this is happening, the moon is moving slightly further away from the Earth, which keeps the angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system constant.

Answer 8

The moon does rotate it makes a complete rotation every 28 days, which is the same as the time it takes to orbit the earth.

Answer 9

It has always been rotating and it is rotating at the same rate as it orbits around the earth so that the moon always have the same face to the earth. the reason of the two motions having the same rate is because of the energy dissipation due to the tidal force from the earth.

Answer 10

It is likely that at one point in it's history it did spin on it's axis. the fact that it is pockmarked all around it's surface is meaningless because of the vast distance between it and the earth. The surface facing the earth is fully exposed to outer space and meteors that pass by us. gravity is the explanation science uses to explain the lack of rotation -- me I'm not so sure. Maybe it isn't perfectly round and one side is heavier than the other.