Nick/all -
While they HAVE noticed that the sunset/rise moves N and south along
the horizon in spring and fall, Few have noticed that the moon makes
that same trip in a month. Wise people have attempted to explain this
with me using a beachball, an orange a grape and a floodlight, but the
explanation still hasn't taken.
And WTF is this all about? Why does the moon orbit roughly in the plane
of the ecliptic rather than perpendicular to the rotation of the earth?
I suppose that it is one or both of the following:?
1) The moon was not formed from the same accretion disk the earth was?
2) The moon is large and close enough to the sun for *it* to exert
tidal forces?
But then it would seem that the *earth's* tidal forces (and it's
oblate-spheroid shape?) might pull the moon into the plane of it's own
rotation?
Hmmm... I bet someone here has already sorted all this...
- Steve
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