@astroathens: 🌕 The Moon does rotate!!!!..... we just don’t notice it. The reason we always see the same face isn’t because the Moon is standing still. It’s because of tidal locking. The Moon takes 27.3 days to rotate once on its axis… and 27.3 days to orbit Earth. Because those two motions are perfectly synchronized, the same hemisphere always faces us. Think of it like walking in a circle around a chair while always facing the center. You’re turning as you move, but the same side of you always faces the chair. Early in the Moon’s history, Earth’s gravity created tidal bulges that slowly adjusted its rotation until it matched its orbit. The true far side wasn’t seen until 1959, when Luna 3 photographed it for the first time. The Moon rotates. It’s just perfectly synchronized with its orbit. 🌕 #Astronomy #space #moon #Science #astrophysics

Athena 💫

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Thursday 12 March 2026 16:10:19 GMT