Question

The moon takes about the same time in rotating about its axis once as it does to complete a revolution around the Earth.
A. True
B. False

Answer 1

Hint: We are only able to see one side of the moon and the tides, which are caused by the gravitational pull of both the sun and the moon on the earth’s surface, occur at various rates depending upon the position of the moon to the position of the sun.

Complete Answer:
- The moon orbits the earth once in 27.322 days and we can see only one side of the moon because the period of the moon’s rotation and revolution is the same. The moon gets synchronised and the gravitational force of earth acts on the moon which leads to the identical rotation and revolution of the moon and both sides of the Moon see the same amount of sunlight, but from Earth, only one face of the Moon is ever seen. This is since at precisely the same time it takes to orbit the Earth, the Moon rotates around on its axis, ensuring the same side is still facing the Earth. The side faced away from Earth was only seen from the eye by a spacecraft.

- It is very unlikely that the moon's spin gets synchronised but it is assumed that this synchronised spin was caused a billion of years ago when the moon was much closer to earth than now and the moon was under only the gravitational pull of the earth and so at that time tidal forces were stronger than now. As tides are also caused by this synchronised spin. Today the earth's gravitational pull has maintained this spin but weaker as there are many more gravitational pulls than that of age. Which made the moon move outward from the strong regions of the gravitational pull of the earth.

From this description, we can conclude that the above-given statement is True (T). Thus the correct answer is option A.

Note: - The moon drifting away from our home planet, that is earth. Per year it shifts approximately 3.8 centimetres away from our planet. It is projected that for about 50 billion years, it will continue to do so.
- The surface of the Moon has immense temperature fluctuations and is unprotected from cosmic rays, meteorites and solar winds. Due to the lack of atmosphere on the moon, no sound can be heard, and the sky still looks dark.