# Why the moon always faces the same side to earth



## Nosada (May 7, 2015)

As this was part of a discussion worth having in a thread that has been locked for off-topic banter, I'd like the clear up the confusion some of our members were having about terms like "The Dark Side of the Moon", tidal locking and so forth. As there are more knowledgeable people who can explain this better than I can, I'll leave the explaining to them:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking










TLDR;

The moon always shows the same side to earth. The only people who have seen the other side of the moon with their own eyes were the Apollo astronauts.


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## dorsetknob (May 7, 2015)

No confusion here


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## qubit (May 7, 2015)

There is actually a dark side of the moon - it changes continuously as the moon rotates.


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## Folterknecht (May 7, 2015)

So the earth is flat? I always suspected that ... .


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## micropage7 (May 8, 2015)

coz its round and it has rotation and revolution


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## rtwjunkie (May 8, 2015)

Nosada said:


> As this was part of a discussion worth having in a thread that has been locked for off-topic banter, I'd like the clear up the confusion some of our members were having about terms like "The Dark Side of the Moon", tidal locking and so forth. As there are more knowledgeable people who can explain this better than I can, I'll leave the explaining to them:
> 
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
> ...


 
Good stuff for those that didn't know.  It's a very "down to Earth" explanation! Thanks for that.


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## dorsetknob (May 8, 2015)

Folterknecht said:


> So the earth is flat? I always suspected that ... .




Are you a Card Carring Member
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/cms/


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## Sasqui (May 8, 2015)

Eventually, the earth will stop spinning and one side will always be facing the sun.  That will be the side with global warming.


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## Aquinus (May 8, 2015)

Nosada said:


> terms like "The Dark Side of the Moon"


I think you mean the "far side of the moon". The entire moon experiences sunlight at some point in its orbit so there is no fixed dark side of the moon. We're not talking about Remus. 


Sasqui said:


> Eventually, the earth will stop spinning and one side will always be facing the sun.  That will be the side with global warming.


I can think of a number of things to do between now and then.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (May 8, 2015)

Here is a list of some of the named features on the visible side of the moon, they are Latin and Greek.


NameDiam. km Lat.  Lon.
Mare Anguis145.9922.4367.58
Mare Australe611.97-40.4194.47
Mare Cognitum350.01-10.53-22.31
Copernicus Crater96.079.62-20.08
Mare Crisium555.9216.1859.1
Mare Fecunditatis840.35-7.8353.67
Mare Frigoris1446.4157.59-0.01
Grimaldi Crater173.49-5.38-68.36
Mare Humboldtianum230.7856.9281.54
Mare Humorum419.67-24.48-38.57
Mare Imbrium1145.5334.72-14.91
Mare Ingenii*282.2-33.25164.83
Mare Insularum511.937.79-30.64
Kepler Crater29.498.09-38.02
Mare Marginis357.6312.786.52
Mare Moscoviense*275.5727.28148.12
Mare Nectaris339.39-15.1934.6
Mare Nubium714.5-20.59-17.29
Mare Orientale294.16-19.87-94.67
Plato Crater100.6851.6-9.38
Oceanus Procellarum2592.2420.67-56.68
Mare Serenitatis674.2827.2918.36
Mare Smythii373.97-1.7187.05
Lacus Somniorum424.7637.5630.8
Mare Spumans143.131.365.3
Stevinus Crater71.54-32.4954.12
Mare Tranquillitatis875.758.3530.83
Tycho Crater86.21-43.31-11.36
Mare Undarum244.847.4968.66
Mare Vaporum242.4613.573.69
* On the far side of the Moon







Here is a thing from wiki explaining why the features on the not visible side of the moon are predominantly Russian

On October 7, 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 took the first photographs





of the lunar far side, eighteen of them resolvable,[8] covering one-third of the surface invisible from the Earth.[9] The images were analysed, and the first atlas of the far side of the Moon was published by the USSR Academy of Sciences on November 6, 1960.
As many prominent landscape features of the far side were discovered by Soviet space probes, Soviet scientists selected names for them. This caused some controversy, and the International Astronomical Union, leaving many of those names intact, later assumed the role of naming lunar features on this hemisphere.

Classical names from Classical times on the front........Russia named the back.







The far side was first seen directly by human eyes during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. AstronautWilliam Anders


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## rtwjunkie (May 8, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Eventually, the earth will stop spinning and one side will always be facing the sun.  That will be the side with global warming.


 
Actually, long before then, the Earth will have lost it's moon, sending our own stable weather we enjoy into a frenzy and making life, which has been made possible by our moon, untenable.

However, not to worry. This is millions of years from now, and before then, our Sun is expected to expand beyond Earth's orbit as its fuel is exhausted, making the whole loss of rotation, loss of moon situations moot points.


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## 64K (May 8, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Eventually, the earth will stop spinning and one side will always be facing the sun.  That will be the side with global warming.



If these guys are right

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/feb/26/earth-is-doomed-in-5-billion-years

then that will be the real global warming. Earth vaporized.


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## qubit (May 8, 2015)

dorsetknob said:


> Are you a Card Carring Member
> http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/cms/


I looked around that site once and was thinking of trolling them, but the degree of retard was way too frustrating to continue with, so I didn't bother.

For example, you know how gravity on our flat earth is producted, don't you? Yes, it's because we're accelerating _up_ at a constant 9.81m/s^2!  Yes, really. Please don't ask awkward questions such as what happens when we hit the speed of light, which would have happened aeons ago, because they don't like it and get all defensive. <facepalm>


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## 64K (May 8, 2015)

qubit said:


> I looked around that site once and was thinking of trolling them, but the degree of retard was way too frustrating to continue with, so I didn't bother.
> 
> For example, you know how gravity on our flat earth is producted, don't you? Yes, it's because we're accelerating _up_ at a constant 9.81m/s^2!  Yes, really. Please don't ask awkward questions such as what happens when we hit the speed of light, which would have happened aeons ago, because they don't like it and get all defensive. <facepalm>



lmao you're right qubit. I just had a quick look around their forum. Things like "The Solar Flux Phenomenon" to explain the sunset. Satellites would melt in space and some guy asked how big is the universe and got this reply

"And what does the Bible say about this ?

The bible says somewhere God holds the whole world in his hand.

If the earth was meant we would have noticed that. So I think, by "world" the whole universe, is meant.

You just have to find out how big God's hand is, then you may approximately know the dimensions of the universe."

It looks like they just ban anyone that disagrees with them so there's no point in trying to reason with them.


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## Ikaruga (May 8, 2015)

64K said:


> If these guys are right
> 
> http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/feb/26/earth-is-doomed-in-5-billion-years
> 
> then that will be the real global warming. Earth vaporized.


These "scientist" have zero imagination imo. We should be already a type III civilization in far less then 5 *million* years, and "fixing" a red giant would be child's play then, so I'm not really worried about what would happen if we would actually survive to be some *billion* years old megagod-like species.


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## Sasqui (May 8, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Actually, long before then, the Earth will have lost it's moon, sending our own stable weather we enjoy into a frenzy and making life, which has been made possible by our moon, untenable.
> 
> However, not to worry. This is millions of years from now, and before then, our Sun is expected to expand beyond Earth's orbit as its fuel is exhausted, making the whole loss of rotation, loss of moon situations moot points.




Or, they'll release Half Life 3?


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## natr0n (May 8, 2015)

There are alien structures/monolith on the dark side supposedly.


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## Aquinus (May 8, 2015)

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:


>


Are you certain that isn't the death star?


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## rooivalk (May 8, 2015)

the girl cartoon in the video looks like from xkcd?


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## theonedub (May 8, 2015)

natr0n said:


> There are alien structures/monolith on the dark side supposedly.



I've been watching way too much Science Channel and H2 channel for my own good- watch enough NASA's Unexplained Files, Hangar 1 Files, etc and you start to think it just _*might*_ be possible


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## natr0n (May 8, 2015)

theonedub said:


> I've been watching way too much Science Channel and H2 channel for my own good- watch enough NASA's Unexplained Files, Hangar 1 Files, etc and you start to think it just _*might*_ be possible



Me too lol


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## Aquinus (May 8, 2015)

theonedub said:


> I've been watching way too much Science Channel and H2 channel for my own good- watch enough NASA's Unexplained Files, Hangar 1 Files, etc and you start to think it just _*might*_ be possible









Spoiler


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## laszlo (May 8, 2015)

i watch crrow777(https://www.youtube.com/user/Crrow777/videos) channel on youtube btw and he is observing&filming the moon from a few years already

is hard to explain what he filmed and no real answers were found only speculations;worth the time looking around on his channel and gather new infos other than from official channels....

"when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" i don't know if this can be applied to his research but i love this quote!


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## erocker (May 8, 2015)

I asked this question to my science teacher about 30 years ago in elementary school. I guess YouTube confirmes he was correct.


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## Ikaruga (May 9, 2015)

laszlo said:


> "when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" i don't know if this can be applied to his research but i love this quote!


It definitely applies. It's impossible that he is a sane person, so the truth must be that he is a *lunatic. *
The channel looks promising for entertainment purposes tho


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## FordGT90Concept (May 9, 2015)

Just remember to think of the Earth and Luna as a fluid more than a solid.  Luna deforms the Earth due to its gravity and that same deformation keeps Luna in lock-step with the Earth.

Luna is slowly moving away from the Earth and it is causing the Earth year to lengthen all of the time.  Eventually, Luna will break orbit and the Earth will lose its rotational stability.  We'll all be long dead by the time that happens.  We know this because the Apollo 11, 14, and 15 missions places reflectors on the surface of the moon and using the speed of light, we can calculate the exact distance between Earth and Luna.  It has been steadily increasing.


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## Ikaruga (May 9, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> It has been steadily increasing.


 Fun fact, the moon receded about 1.75m (~5.7 feet) from Earth since the Apollo 11 mission.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (May 9, 2015)

*The ‘Second Moon’ You Didn’t Know Earth Had*
*
Cruithne
*
well, in a co orbital orbit  so close










Cruithne (CREW-een-ya) is an asteroid with a bizarre orbit. when viewed from an Earth frame of reference (Stationary Earth). It describes a series of bean shapes. Over the course of 770 years the series completes a horseshoe-shaped movement, with the Earth in the gap of the horseshoe. It approaches the Earth from one direction, then it moves away and makes more bean shapes as it moves around the Sun, until it approaches Earth from the other side, and then moves away again. Studying the animation will show you that Cruithne never really goes around Earth. At times the orbit brings Cruithne underneath the south pole of the Earth (40 times farther away than the Moon), and at other times it can be seen on the other side of the Sun.
*Orbital Period: One Earth Year!*
Cruithne is at a balance point where its average orbital period around the Sun is the same as Earth - one year. Cruithne's orbit takes it inwards towards the orbit of Mercury, and outside the orbit of Mars. Cruinthe's fast motion when it is close to Mercury's orbit is compensated by its slow motion when it lies beyond the orbit of Mars. The Earth helps maintain the orbit of Cruithne by "shepherding" it. At a slow point, the Earth's gravity gives it a pull and speeds it up. At a fast point, the Earth's gravity slows it down.

Because the asteroid and the Earth do not go around the Sun in exactly the same amount of time every year, (the asteroid is currently going around slightly faster than the Earth), the position of the bean-shaped loop relative to the Earth varies over time. If the asteroid and the Earth were not in a special arrangement, the Earth would face potential danger as the asteroid would eventually drift towards our planet. However, in their current relationship, the direction of drift is reversed every time it approaches the Earth. It is as if the Earth uses gravity in a clever way to regulate the asteroid and keep it at a safe distance.

Cruithne is about three miles in diameter (5 km) and was discovered by D. Waldron in 1986. It cannot be seen by the naked eye. The odd orbit was discovered in 1997. Astronomers working at Queen Mary and Westfield College in London came up with mathematical models to describe its path. Two other asteroids have been discovered which travel in a similar way as Cruithne; 1998 UP1 and 2000 PH5.

The name Cruithne refers to one of the earliest Celtic tribes known to have inhabited Britain and Ireland. They may have been the first Celtic tribe to migrate from the mainland, or they may have been descendents of prehistoric tribes indigenous to the British Isles since the stone age
http://www.wwu.edu/skywise/a101_cruithne.html


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## dorsetknob (May 9, 2015)

Not Strictly a Moon as it does not Orbit the Earth but Co orbits the Sun with Earth

edit 
Unless Fact

"" That Great tech Guru Stephen Fry ""( Very BIG SNIGGER ) once posed the Question "How many Moons has the Earth" on his Tv Show   Q I

Giving the reply of 2 and his explanation   he was later ripped a new ringpiece because he was WRONG


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## Ikaruga (May 9, 2015)

dorsetknob said:


> Not Strictly a Moon as it does not Orbit the Earth but Co orbits the Sun with Earth


No. Strictly speaking , the Moon does orbit Earth. There are some minor tidal forces because of the Sun which are altering the Moon's orbit very slightly (when the moon is between the Sun and the Earth versus when it's on the other side), but the Moon would definitely continue to orbit Earth if you could magically make the Sun disappear.


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## dorsetknob (May 9, 2015)

Ikaruga said:


> No. Strictly speaking , the Moon does orbit Earth. There are some minor tidal forces because of the Sun which are altering the Moon's orbit very slightly (when the moon is between the Sun and the Earth versus when it's on the other side), but the Moon would definitely continue to orbit Earth if you could magically make the Sun disappear.




Nowhere did i say the moon does not orbit the Earth
I was refering to Cruithne

Ps watch this


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## Ikaruga (May 9, 2015)

dorsetknob said:


> Nowhere did i say the moon does not orbit the Earth
> I was refering to Cruithne
> 
> Ps watch this


oh sorry, you used a capital *M* in the word Moon, which can only refer to our only *M*oon (just as we use *S*un for our star and *G*alaxy for the Milky Way). It was a misunderstanding, please forgive my English.


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## dorsetknob (May 9, 2015)

Of course your forgiven
Its nice and appreciated when someone owns up to a mistake ( genuine) and not when they launch personal attacks on people because they are wrong ( i am not referring to you @Ikaruga )


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