Earth -Moon Scale and Orbit.ppt

Earth -Moon Scale and Orbit /multimedia/gallery/Earth_Moon.jpg By the Lunar and Planetary Institute For use in teacher workshops Earth’s Moon What’s the Moon like? What do people see when they look at the Moon? /catalog/PIA00094 /resources/mapcatalog/LandingSite/index.html /multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=1757 How Big is the Moon? Moon Size ~ 1/4 width of Earth Radius of 1080 miles Gravity ~1/6 of Earth’s /IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-001444.jpg Relative Size and Distance of Earth and Moon? /info;jsessionid=gfuzp418gewa?id=C-1979-00910orgid=2 /view_rec.php?id=1624 Earth and Moon to Scale If Earth were a basketball, then the Moon would be a tennis ball, 23.5 feet away Moon Stats No light of its own!! Moon Rotation Spins on axis (rotates) once every 27.3 days Tilted ~1.5 degrees (Earth = 23.5) Moon’s Orbit Orbits (revolves around) Earth every 27.3 days Elliptical orbit (not a perfect circle) 360,000 km 406,000 km 224,000 miles 252,000 miles /multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=442 The Near Side The Moon rotates in 27.3 days. The Moon orbits Earth in 27.3 days. Because the Moon rotates and revolves at the same rate, we only see one side The NEAR side There is NO DARK SIDE There is a FAR side…. And the Backside! The FAR side /catalog/PIA00304 Moon Stats Moon’s orbit around Earth is inclined about 5 degrees to Earth’s plane of orbit around the Sun Ecliptic plane Sun Earth Moon Moon’s orbital plane Image created by LPI staff * This powerpoint compiled by the Education Staff at the Lunar and Planetary Institute Image from /multimedia/gallery/Earth_Moon.jpg Eight days after its final encounter with the Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back and captured this remarkable view of the Earth and Moon. The image was taken from a distance of about 6.2 million km (3.9 million miles). The picture was made with images taken through the violet, red, and 1.0-micron infrared filters. The Moon is in the foreground, moving from left to right. Th