No moon? No tides?

Ripper

Ripper

Ripper

Soldato
Joined
25 Jan 2003
Posts
11,542
Location
Newark, Notts
Someone explain this to me. Anyone who saw big brother last night will have heard the task they had to do. And one of the consequences of having no moon is that there will be no tides. I didn't understand why? doens't wind create tides? Does the moon create wind or something?

Someone explain it to me please :p
 
short answer as im in a rush: weak gravitational pull of the moon causes the water to move in the way we know as tidal flow
 
Tides are periodic rises and falls of large bodies of water. Tides are caused by the gravitational interaction between the Earth and the Moon. The gravitational attraction of the moon causes the oceans to bulge out in the direction of the moon. Another bulge occurs on the opposite side, since the Earth is also being pulled toward the moon (and away from the water on the far side). Since the earth is rotating while this is happening, two tides occur each day.
Click to expand...
 
question is: if the moon is removed from our orbit, why would this cause a catastrophic destruction of the earth?
 
Did you do GSCE physics? If so how can you not know this? :confused:

Phantom said:
question is: if the moon is removed from our orbit, why would this cause a catastrophic destruction of the earth?
Click to expand...

It won't.
 
many people also get really confused as to why theres 2 tides a day and not one.... since the moon isn't over you twice a day to pull the water up!


Basically, at full high tide, the moon will be over your position on the globe, pulling the water in the oceans towards your location, but instead of pulling the water in one dimension asymettrically, the water is pulled at your position and a position at the EXACT OPPOSITE side of the Earth....

So the tides look kinda like oval shapes....excuse my MSN paint drawing lol:




so you get 2 high tides and 2 low tides per day due to this gravitational effect!!

But the question is completely irrelevant anyway because if we had no moon there would be no Earth as we know it IE no life so no tides to worry about - but that is a whole different can of worms which is staying SHUT!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom