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It is quite amazing that in spite of the moon's rotation about its own axis and our (the Earth's) revolution around the sun where the moon comes along for the r
by raghus 15y ago
It is quite amazing that in spite of the moon's rotation about its own axis and our (the Earth's) revolution around the sun where the moon comes along for the ride, we still only ever see just a bit over 50% of the surface of the moon. That takes some amount of dexterity on the part of the moon.
- bdhe 15y agoThis is very common among natural satellites. Here's the phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking (Look at the list of tidally locked bodies)
- raghus 15y agoI did not know that, thank you.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoI find it more amazing that the apparent size of the moon is very very close to the apparent size of the sun.
- ColinWright 15y agoThat won't be true forever. The Moon gets about 38 mm further away every year, so at some point there will be no more total solar eclipses, only annular eclipses. Shame for future humans or trans-humans, but great for us to live at such a time.
- indrax 15y ago>trans-humans If they care, they'll fix it.