Question

Does the moon orbit in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction around the earth?

Answer 1

Hint: The moon rotates around its own axis and at the same time it also rotates around the earth. Such movement of the moon causes day and night on the earth. These movements result in the day and the night in 24 hours, 12 hours each.

Complete step by step answer:
To understand whether the moon orbits in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction, first we need to understand why the moon orbits around the earth. Like any other object in an obit, the moon rotates in an orbit around the earth due to Newton’s first law of motion. For any object to orbit around any other object, there must be a combination of speed and gravity acting on the object. In the case of the moon, the moon wants to move in a straight line motion but due to earth’s gravity, which is an outside force, the moon moves slightly out of the line and continues the circular motion.
The moon, along with many other non-asteroid sized moons which are present in the solar system, orbit the earth in the counterclockwise direction when viewed from the north pole. If the orbit of the moon around the earth is seen from the south pole, then the moon orbits around the sun in a clockwise direction.

Note: It is important to note that the meaning of rotation and revolution is completely different in context of the solar system. Rotation is the process of moving around anything. Whereas revolution is the process of moving around itself as well as the moving around any other source.