Why aren’t solar eclipses much more common?

Question

since the moon takes less than a month to revolve completely around the Earth, wouldn’t it make sense that at some point it is between the earth and sun somewhat frequently?

In: 5

Answer 1

The moons orbit around the earth is NOT coplanar with the earth’s orbit around the sun. It is “tilted” at a 5 degree angle (approx). So the moon’s orbit passes through the plane of the earth’s orbit twice a rotation. But the majority of the time, it does not occlude the sun so solar eclipses don’t occur every time the moon passes the earth’s orbital plane.