Hello, my name is Kiley, and welcome to "Our Moon Part 1"! In this video, you'll learn all about our
closest neighbor in space, our Moon. Our Moon is a fascinating object in the sky that is more than
just a hunk of rock. Life on Earth actually depends on it. Are you ready to learn how?
Let's take a look up in the sky and get to know our Moon better.
First off, let's get to know what a moon actually is.
A moon is an object in space that orbits around a larger body and has nothing orbiting
it. This means that the object moves around another object in a circular or oval path.
Moons are known as natural satellites because they were not put there by man. Moons are almost always
smaller than the planets they orbit. Our Earth has only one moon. Some planets in our solar system,
like Mercury or Venus, have no moons, while others, like Jupiter and Saturn,
have many. If you'd like to learn more about the other planets in our solar system,
be sure to watch our Planets video series.
There is also an important writing rule for using the word "moon." When you are writing
about our Moon, it should be capitalized. When writing about any other moon, you do
not capitalize the word "moon." The Earth has strong gravity, like a magnet, that holds the moon
in orbit around our planet. But our Moon also has its own gravity that tugs against our planet.
Earth's gravitational pull on the Moon is much stronger. It's like the Earth is winning a
tug-of-war with the Moon. Our Moon's gravitational pull on our planet is quite strong. How strong?
Strong enough to pull on the oceans and create the tides. Tides are the rising and falling of
the ocean surface. If you are ever on a beach at low tide, you may see a lot of sand and have a lot
of area to play and find seashells and rocks. If you are near that same beach at high tide, you may
not even be able to see the beach at all because the water could be completely covering the beach.
That's a lot of movement! Tides are very important to humans and animals on our planet.
Humans depend on tides to be able to get ships and boats in and out of harbors.
We also use the tides to know when it is a good time to fish.
Some fish and sea animals only come close to land during certain tides.
Animals also depend on tides. For example, sea turtles return to the beach where they hatched on
during one specific high tide during the year. Since there are two high tides and
two low tides during a 24-hour period, scientists are also working on ways to capture the energy
of all that moving water to produce electricity. How neat is that?
The Earth is moving through space on a path around the Sun called an orbit.
While it's doing that, the Moon is orbiting the Earth.
Have you ever tried rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time
or spinning a hula hoop around your belly in one direction while spinning one leg
in the opposite direction? That is sort of how the Earth, Moon, and Sun are moving through space.
Let's try and take a closer look at this movement.
Hmm. The Earth also spins on its center or axis like a top spins.
While the Earth is spinning, the moon is traveling in a circular path around our planet.
Many people falsely believe the Moon doesn't rotate on any axis because we only see one side of
it. While it is true we only see one side of our Moon and we call the side we do not see the "dark
side" of the Moon, our Moon does, in fact, rotate or spin. So if the Moon is rotating on an axis,
how come we only see one side? Because as it rotates, it's also moving around
our planet at about the same rate or speed as it spins. The time it takes to rotate is
the same time it takes to orbit. The scientific term for this is called "synchronous rotation."
The next time you are out after dark, remember to look up and see if you can see our wonderful,
amazing Moon. To continue learning about our Moon, be sure to watch other titles in this series.
To practice what you've learned about our Moon and other interesting science topics,
be sure to play our fun online games and quizzes. Until next time, remember to always be clever!