Why does the moon move further across the sky every day?

Question

I’m talking about how one night it will be in one spot in the sky, and the next night at the same time it will be to the side of where it was the day before.

In: 0

Answer 1

Because the Moon is orbiting the Earth every month, in addition to the Earth rotating every day. By the time the Earth rotates once, the Moon has moved ~1/28 of the way around its orbit, which is a big enough difference to be visible in the sky.

The Earth’s orbit creates the same effect for the Sun, but the longer length of the orbit (365+ days) makes it less noticeable from day to day.