If the moon creates the tides, why don’t any other objects get lifted by its gravitational pull?
In: Planetary Science
All the other answers here are either missing a major component or are just flat out wrong. Most of the forces doing the actually raising of the tides aren’t lifting the tides directly away from the Earth. Draw a circle, that’s the Earth. Now draw the Moon off to the right (and remember that the moon is *very* far away. Draw lines from various points on the right side of the surface of the Earth to the moon. That represents the direction that the Moon is pulling the oceans towards. Now draw lines from those same points on the Earth, to the center of the Earth. That represents the direction that gravity is pulling the oceans. What you’ll notice is that for most of those points, the lines that you drew to the Moon don’t line up to form a straight line with the lines you drew to the center of the Earth. There is a bend. Imagine you are standing on one of those points. If there was no gravity, which direction would those lines to the Moon pull you relative to the surface of the Earth? Yes, away from the Earth, but also sideways along the surface of the Earth. Now these forces are very tiny. So the part of the force that is pulling away from the Earth doesn’t matter, but the part of the force that is pulling the oceans sideways along the surface of the Earth, doesn’t have anything (gravity) acting against it. Because the oceans are made of water, they flow in that direction, or towards the right side of the Earth.
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