Thursday, August 11, 2011

A simple question about astrophysics and the moon?

The moon makes exactly one ROTATION each time it orbits the earth. The reason is because the tidal forces of the earth stretch the moon into an oblong (or egg) shape, with a slight bulge facing the earth. That keeps one side pointing toward the earth like a comp needle, only due to gravitation instead of magnetism. There is a chicken verses the egg scenario here, because the moon's bulge is a result of synchronous rotation, whereas synchronous rotation is a result of the moon's bulge. They both evolved together, however, which is also like the chicken and the egg. Since all the major moons of Jupiter do the exact same thing, it is not a rare situation.

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