What is tidal locking between Moon and Earth? Does moon not rotate on its axis?
In: Physics
The gravity of earth doesn’t just keep our feet on the ground, it also keeps the moon in its orbit. However, because the far side of the moon is a little further away than the near side, the near side experiences a tiny little bit more gravity from earth. It’s not much, but it causes the moon to bulge a tiny little bit. And because earth pulls slightly stronger at the bulge than the rest of the moon, over millions of years this caused the moon to rotate at the exact speed that keeps the near side pointing towards earth. This is the same effect that causes ebb and flow here on earth.
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