Lunar Body Tide: For The First Time We Can See How Earth Impacts The Moon

You can't seeit from here, but the moon is lopsided; that's because of its gravitational tug-of-war with Earth. The mutual pulling of the two bodies is powerful enough to stretch them both and they wind up shaped a little like two eggs with their ends pointing toward one another. On Earth, the tension has an especially strong effect on the oceans, because water moves so freely. The moon is the driving force behind tides.  For the first time, scientists can see the moon's lopsided shape and how it changes under Earth's sway – a response not seen from orbit before. Because orbiting spacecraft gathered the data, the scientists were able to take the entire moon into account, not just the side that can be observed from Earth.  read more

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