Why Does the Moon Orbit Earth?

It takes the moon about 27 days to orbit the Earth. What makes it go round? It is the gravitational attraction of the Earth on the moon. Due to the moon's velocity, the Earth keeps pulling the moon towards it without the moon actually getting closer to the Earth. This is similar to how satellites orbit the Earth.

[itsGabrielaCristina]

I love the girl's explanation of Earth's gravitational pull. "come here!"

[Valkuir]

I think, there could be a section at the end of the video where he actually explains the actual answer to the question.

[veritasium]

I try to accurately represent the ideas of virtually everyone I interview.

[veritasium]

@Quinston82 centrifugal force only 'exists' if we analyse the motion in the accelerating frame of reference of the moon. More conventionally we would say the moon experiences an unbalanced force of attraction towards Earth and therefore accelerates towards it. It never gets any close to Earth because of its large lateral velocity.

[SotraEngine]

I once had a science teacher somehow say that the moon isn't affected by Earth gravity and that's the reason it doesn't fall down *facepalm*
How was that person allowed to teach science?!

[GetawayFilms]

It seemed to me that the video covered all the bases, he asks a question and allows the subject to try and reach a relatively sound conclusion without help. If they fail to achieve this, he drops clues as to which part of their answer is heading in the right direction.. Then, allows them to expand on their previous thoughts. Excellent teaching method too.

[veritasium]

The central point is inside the Earth. What is remarkable about that video is how not-to-scale it is. The moon should be about 30 Earth diameters away. So yes the Earth and moon orbit a common centre of mass, but that point happens to be inside the Earth while the moon swings around at a distance of about 380, 000 km

[veritasium]

@dianaruslanovna Um, no. The gravitational force is always attractive. And thankfully the moon doesn't get pulled into our atmosphere. The pull from the Earth is what keeps the moon orbiting around the Earth.

[ivancota]

its kinda late now, 8 years after but I would say that the earth spins around a gravitational centre point, as same as the moon does, and because the earth is so much more massive, the centre happens to be inside the earth, there is an equation regarding distance and mass and gravity.
if you take a dual star system, they are usually very far away and their center of gravitational pull which they revolve around could be for instance at the middlepoint of their distance (if they would have the same mass).
Yes I'm litterally beging for someone to ask me stuff on the street, any stuff 😤

[ammuthechamp]

After General theory of Relativity, how do you explain the Moon's pull on earth? Does it even exert any force on earth?

[Quinston]

The Earth's gravitational pull is constantly tugging on the Moon. The reason the Moon doesn't come crashing down into the Earth is that it is moving laterally to the Earth, creating centrifugal (outward) force equal and opposite to that of the Earth's gravity.

[EebstertheGreat]

When you ask these question to the public, most people seem to fare much better with arguably more nuanced questions than with more basic ones. Almost all of the answers given in this video were basically correct, if imprecise. Yet few people could even explain what a force was or what caused the seasons.

[willoughbykrenzteinburg]

You are right. I just wanted to clarify so that people don't think that only one particular velocity can produce a perfectly circular orbit. At a given height or distance from the center of the parent, there is only one velocity that maintains a perfectly circular orbit at that distance. Larger orbits (farther distance) require less orbital velocity, but there is only one velocity that maintains a circular orbit PER orbit height.

[JT]

The moon orbiting the Earth is undergoing circular motion as a result of the "centripetal force" provided by the gravitational attraction force. The moon is actually in a state of free fall, but because it has a linear orbital velocity, at the same time it is falling down, it's also moving away from the Earth. Because horizontal and vertical motions are independent, while the satellite is describing a circle, it can be considered to be in a state of free fall, similar to a projectile.

[Arghira]

I love how you copy their gestures so you can relate to them!

[Rage]

Don't forget that we're not talking about orbits between ONLY a star and planet, or planet and moon... We are also affected by every other planets, and asteroid, so to think that we'd have a perfectly circular orbit would mean that our velocity had to be perfect, and all the celestial bodies had to be perfectly aligned, to keep us from going out of the perfect circle...

This is obviously not the case...

[soxredsox]

i really hate how everyone seems to be a genius when watching these videos and loves to try to up someone in knowing more smh. ill be the first, thanks! i learned a lot that i didnt know before! keep the videos and lessons coming! :)

[Rfsancho]

He's saying climbing a ladder during high-noon in summer would burn the human up, all aerial objects resist millions of degrees centigrade, and all our miners are frozen solid. And the Earth is a 100% 2-dimensional, concave disk toward the sun, that circumnavigates at the same exact distance from the sun at every nuance of a second. And we have no tilt in our earth at the moment so the bi-annual pole nights are a blasphemy, son!

Jees, Forbayn, you should listen to him, he is a genius!

[youmaycallmeken]

Would it be correct that the moon does 1 rotation per orbit and thereby keeps the same half facing the Earth? Why did this develop? Is this typical of planets' moons in the Solar System?

[bigben]

You took the words right out of my mouth. May I add that those 5 kilometers amounts to not much, because they can't even offset the effects of the axial tilt. The earth is nearer to the sun when it is winter in the northern hemisphere.