The Moon’s Revolution and Rotation

The Moon’s sidereal period—that is, the period of its revolution about Earth measured with respect to the stars—is a little over 27 days: the sidereal month is 27.3217 days to be exact. The time interval in which the phases repeat—say, from full to full—is the solar month, 29.5306 days. The difference results from Earth’s motion around the Sun. The Moon must make more than a complete turn around the moving Earth to get back to the same phase with respect to the Sun. As we saw, the Moon changes its position on the celestial sphere rather rapidly: even during a single evening, the Moon creeps visibly eastward among the stars, traveling its own width in a little less than 1 hour. The delay in moonrise from one day to the next caused by this eastward motion averages about 50 minutes.

The Moon rotates on its axis in exactly the same time that it takes to revolve about Earth. As a consequence, the Moon always keeps the same face turned toward Earth (Figure 2). You can simulate this yourself by “orbiting” your roommate or another volunteer. Start by facing your roommate. If you make one rotation (spin) with your shoulders in the exact same time that you revolve around him or her, you will continue to face your roommate during the whole “orbit.” As we will see in coming chapters, our Moon is not the only world that exhibits this behavior, which scientists call synchronous rotation.

Figure 2: The Moon without and with Rotation. In this figure, we stuck a white arrow into a fixed point on the Moon to keep track of its sides. (a) If the Moon did not rotate as it orbited Earth, it would present all of its sides to our view; hence the white arrow would point directly toward Earth only in the bottom position on the diagram. (b) Actually, the Moon rotates in the same period that it revolves, so we always see the same side (the white arrow keeps pointing to Earth).

The differences in the Moon’s appearance from one night to the next are due to changing illumination by the Sun, not to its own rotation. You sometimes hear the back side of the Moon (the side we never see) called the “dark side.” This is a misunderstanding of the real situation: which side is light and which is dark changes as the Moon moves around Earth. The back side is dark no more frequently than the front side. Since the Moon rotates, the Sun rises and sets on all sides of the Moon. With apologies to Pink Floyd, there is simply no regular “Dark Side of the Moon.”