When we look at the moon in the night sky, all the time we only see one side of the moon. We on Earth never get to see the far side or the dark side of the moon! Ever thought why?
Well… Let’s see why? the Moon makes one revolution around the Earth about every 29 days, and that’s what causes the Moon phases. But the Moon also rotates once every 29 days also. Because of this, the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth. This is because of something called tidal locking.
Tidal force is like, When you are standing up, Gravity acts on you. And your feet are just a little bit closer to the center of the Earth than your head, this means that the Earth pulls with a slightly larger gravitational force on the lower half of you than the upper half. This slight difference is called a tidal force.
When something like a Moon is close enough to a planet, these gravitational tidal forces cause the Moon to spin at the same rate that it revolves around the planet. When this happens, we call it tidal locking, and that’s why we always see the same side of the Moon!
If you want to know, how tides are formed on ocean, read this What really cause tides?Also, do you know that the far side of the moon doesn’t have the dark spots like on the near side of the moon? Find out why on my next article..