Remember that the current consensus theory is that the Moon was ejected from the Earth when a Mars-sized object struck the Earth. Almost all objects in the Solar System lie in the same plane (the "ecliptic" plane), associated with the original disk-like concentration of material. There's no reason at all to expect the Moon to have an orbit in our equatorial plane.
Note that the four bright moons of Jupiter, first seen by Galileo, have orbits in the ecliptic plane. Bruce On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
