Why does the MOON revolve around the Earth and not the Sun?

Planet Earth is the only planet in the solar system that contains life. It is about 4.57 billion years old. Certain particular characteristics have allowed the development, evolution and permanence of life in it: the oceans, an exceptionally large moon relative to Earth, the existence of a magnetic field, and the tectonics of plates.

Moon What we see from Earth is our satellite, is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System, but relative to the size of our planet, it is the largest. You may ask what is a satellite? In astronomy, a satellite is an object that orbits, rotates, or circles around a planet. There are hundreds of natural satellites, better known as moons. We can also find man-made satellites that have been launched into space for various purposes.

In this lesson from a Teacher we tell you why the moon revolves around the earth.

Index

1. The Moon, the satellite of the Earth
2. Moon movements
3. Why doesn't the moon fall on us?
4. Why does the Moon shine?

Earth is a planet. The planets have a semi-spherical shape and revolve around a star, our star is the Sun, this means that the earth spins around the sun.

Planet Earth is also known as blue Planet, since it is covered on its surface by a large amount of water. The Earth is not the only planet that orbits the sun: within our solar system there are 7 more planets, in order of proximity to the sun we find Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

As mentioned above, in our solar system we can also find hundreds of natural satellites or moons. Our planet Earth has its own moon. Thanks to the Earth's rotation on its own axis, we can sometimes see the moon during the day, but often this happens at night. The moon, like the Earth, too rotates on its own axis.

Moonis located at a distance of 385,000 kilometers from Earth, a rocket takes 3 days to reach it. The Moon moves around the Earth through two movements:

• Rotatory motion (rotates on its own axis)
• Translation movement, this means that it moves around the Earth

Both moves take 29 days. Because the Moon takes the same time to go around its axis as it does around the Earth, it always presents us with the same face.

Why does the Moon revolve around the Earth and not the Sun?

Gravity is a force that the Earth possesses, it is the one that "pulls" our bodies down and allows our feet to stay on the ground, we must imagine the Earth as a huge magnet. The curious thing is that we do not need to be in direct contact with the Earth for it to attract us, it is enough to be close.

This is the reason why our planet revolves around the Sun and the Moon revolves around the Earth. So we must say that the reason why the Moon stays close to the Earth orbiting it is the gravitational force.

The Moon and the Earth move simultaneously in their paths around the Sun. The Sun is so big that it is capable of keeping us revolving around it despite how far away it is.

The Moon keeps revolving around the planet Earth thanks to the force of attraction, in a state of permanent balance, it doesn't float away in space or fall on us thanks to the combination of speed and distance it is from our planet. If it moved slower it would fall and if it moved faster it would move away.

The force of gravity depends on the distance: if we got far enough away from Earth, we would lose this attractive force and we would "float" through space.

The moon has no light of its own, since it is not a star. What makes us see her sparkly is he sun that illuminates it.

As a consequence of the positions that the Moon is taking in space with respect to the Earth and the Sun, we can observe visible changes in the illuminated portion of the lunar surface. These changes that we observe are the well-known Moon phases. They always happen in the same order.

If you want to read more articles similar to Why does the moon revolve around the earth, we recommend that you enter our category of Astronomy.

• Folguera, A., Cichowols, M.,. Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. Natural Sciences. The earth. Introduction, the planet of life. Editorial Explore.
• National University of Cordoba (UNC). Cordoba Astronomical Observatory. IATE (Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Astronomy). Conicet. "The universe within the reach of children. Activity guide for teachers.