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Ocean Tides and Phases of the Moon
Angela Clark
Mercer University
Ocean Tides and Phases of the Moon
The sun and moon have a gravitational attraction to the earth (World Book, 2004). That attraction effects the earth in a specific way, namely it causes changes in the oceans tides. It does not, however, effect the earth’s solid surface as it is too rigid to be changed by the pull (Asimov, 1988). As the earth and moon move around each other and the sun, the changes can be seen and predicted. The changes have patterns and those patterns can be researched and a determination of how they will occur later can be made. The moon has the greatest amount of gravitational pull on the earth. Earth’s moon has a greater gravitational
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Using the information known about the phases of the moon and the time it takes the moon to rotate, the earth to rotate and both to rotate aound the sun, it can be determined what the moon phase will be at any given time. Knowing that the phase will be in a new moon on a given day, it will also be known that in one week it will be in a first quarter phase, then a week later in a full moon phase, and finally a week after that it will be in the third quarter phase (Gaherty, 2013). The phase of the moon can be calculated backward on the calendar as well as forward on the calendar using this week by week comparison For example, the moon phase on Tuesday September 9, 2014 was a full moon. In one week, on September 16, it will be half moon in its first quarter phase. In two weeks, on September 23, the moon will be in a new moon phase. If it is calculated in this week by week manner, in approximately one year, on September 1, 2015, the moon will be in a full moon phase again. The discrepancy in the date not being exactly one year is due to the fact that the moon rotates around the earth at approximately 29.5 days giving a shift over the course of one year (Gaherty, …show more content…
This takes place when a full moon phase happens twice in one month. Only a month with more days than the number of days the moon rotates around the earth will have a blue moon. On the other hand, a blue moon will never be seen in the month of February since it never has more days than the moon cycle. The moon is not typically blue in color during a blue moon, unless there are atmospheric changes that could cause a tint to the air making the moon appear blue in color. The term has been used since the late 1800’s to mean something strange or out of the norm. It is not known how exactly the term came into existence (Space.com,