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The Moon

Kevster · 2007-07-30 22:29:01

Hi, Is there any particular reason why the Moon's axial rotation period is equal to it's orbit around Earth (i.e. 27.3 days)? This does of course result in the fact that we see the same face of the moon each night. Is it coincidence? A kind of similar situation occurs with Pluto and Charon. There, Charon's orbital period…

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30-07-2007 11:29pm

#1

Kevster

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Hi,

Is there any particular reason why the Moon's axial rotation period is equal to it's orbit around Earth (i.e. 27.3 days)? This does of course result in the fact that we see the same face of the moon each night. Is it coincidence?

A kind of similar situation occurs with Pluto and Charon. There, Charon's orbital period equals Pluto's axial rotation period resulting in Charon hanging over the same hemisphere of Pluto, perpetually.

Kevin.

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#2 31-07-2007 1:30am
MooseJam

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It's called tidal locking, fairly common in the cosmos, wikipedia has a long article on it

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

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#3 31-07-2007 1:37am
Kevster

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...Ingenius concept; thanks for that.

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