All the surface of the moon gets lit by the Sun as the Moon rotates. The Moon is also pulling back on the tidal bulge of the Earth, slowing the Earth’s rotation. But, there are still some horrible ways that our planet could die. Astroquizzical answers all of your questions about space. Will Earth become tidally locked with the Sun? Why can we only see one side of the Moon? In fact, we see more than one face (more than 50% of the surface of the moon). However, these tidal forces also have another effect - they resist rotation. The “lock” part of this name refers to the way that an object - like the Moon - is apparently fixed in position, with one side always facing the other object. You have probably heard references been made to the “dark side” of the Moon – there’s even a Pink Floyd album with that name. For many stars, the habitable zone – the ring of space within which planets are able to sustain life – overlaps partially with a zone that makes planets likely to be tidally locked to their star, making them significantly less habitable – but it appears that such a fate is not in store for the Earth. Pay by Direct Debit and get 40% off an annual subscription*, Receive every issue delivered direct to your door with FREE UK delivery. But, yes, we see only one side of the moon, and here’s why. Because the Moon is also orbiting around the Earth. Now, all mass exerts a gravitational force, and the tidal bulges on the Earth exert a gravitational pull on the Moon. I write about the planet Earth and science on this website, ourplnt.com. On the left, we can see the current phenomenon. If the moon didn’t rotate at all, we would see all of its sides – it would alternately show its near and far sides to Earth. There’s a great visualization of this below. Far-away objects are less likely to experience dramatic differences in gravity between their two sides, resulting in smaller bulges, and the bulges themselves will feel less of a pull. Charon is such a large satellite compared to Pluto that they are tidally locked together. How often do large meteorites hit the Moon? Here is the “we’ll talk about it later” part. The source of the “dark side” misconception is: because we always see the same side of the moon from the Earth. But, why it is like that? Why is the far side of the Moon so heavily cratered? The Moon’s gravity pulls on the earth, and the water on the surface of the Earth closest to the moon responds to that pull by elongating towards the moon. Have a question? However, it’s the “tidal” part of the tidal locking that gives us the real key to why tidal locking happens at all. Until 1959, nobody has seen the far side of the moon. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! If Neil Armstrong was first on the Moon, who filmed him on the ladder? This effect stretches the Earth a bit, making it a little bit oblong. But we’re lucky, as mentioned above, the Earth won’t get tidally locked. Listen to some of the brightest names in science and technology talk about the ideas and breakthroughs shaping our world. If you watch the way the moon spins (or doesn’t), you can see that only the left side has a consistent side facing the surface of our planet (which, we must note, is not even a little bit to scale here). There are two main reasons for this. If the moon didn’t rotate at all, we would see all of its sides; the only way for us to see such a constant face of the moon is if it’s also rotating. Why are we limited to seeing only 50 percent? Tidal Locking, The Reason Why Do We See only One Side of The Moon Over billions of years, the Earth’s gravity has forced the Moon to spin synchronously with its orbit. Look out for your Lunchtime Genius newsletter in your inbox soon. This is not a coincidence. In 1959 a Soviet spacecraft named Luna 3, or E-2A No.1 was launched as part of the Soviet Union’s Luna programme (a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976). First, the Moon’s orbit around Earth is elliptical not circular so its rotation is sometimes ahead, and sometimes behind, its orbital motion. Home drones, car alarms and smart sidewalks, How Amazon wants to shape your smart home in 2021 and beyond. Top 6 Biggest Prehistoric Crocodiles This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. What if the Earth was tidally locked to the Sun? With these extras, we can see 59% of the surface of the moon. The Earth’s rotation is slowing down because of this. Subscribe to BBC Focus magazine for fascinating new Q&As every month and follow @sciencefocusQA on Twitter for your daily dose of fun science facts. But, in fact, there’s no “dark side” of the moon. Image credit: wikimedia user Tomruen. We can call it as the “near side”, and we don’t see the other side from Earth, so, the “far side” is a more accurate term than the “dark side”. If the moon was spinning less than once per orbit, the Earth would have pulled the other way, speeding its rotation. Top 6 Largest Fish Species PLUS a free mini-magazine for you to download and keep. Why there is a “far side”?eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'ourplnt_com-box-3','ezslot_1',192,'0','0'])); It seems even weirder as we know that the moon also rotates on its own axis – so, one should expect to get a full picture of our satellite as it rotates. In the beginning, the moon was much closer to the EarthNotes 1 that Earth’s gravity deformed the moon into a slight oval, with one of its bulges facing Earth. Our moon is a great example of that. Once the Moon’s rotation had slowed so much that a single face was always facing the surface of the Earth, it had officially been tidally locked, and has stayed in this configuration ever since. If the Moon didn't rotate about its axis, here's what would happen. The Moon was almost certainly not tidally locked when it first formed - at that time, it would have rotated at a faster speed, which meant that had any observer been on the early Earth, they could have seen all sides of the moon as it spun. An extreme example is the case of Pluto and its satellite Charon. And second, the Moon’s rotation axis is not at right angles to its orbit around the Earth so we can sometimes see ‘over’ or ‘under’ its poles. This resistance due to the gravitational pull of the Earth gradually slowed down the faster spin of the Moon until the Moon was no longer rotating faster than it was orbiting.

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