Question
Question: If you saw the moon rising at 7pm today, would you see it at the same time tomorrow?...
If you saw the moon rising at 7pm today, would you see it at the same time tomorrow?
Solution
Moon doesn’t rise at the same time each night; this is because of the speed of Earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbit. Generally, the moon rises about 5o minutes late each day.
Complete step by step answer
The rising of the moon depends upon factors such as the speed of Earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbits. The Earth rotates in clockwise direction on its axis and as a result the other celestial bodies such as the sun, stars appear to rise in the east and set in the west. The earth is tilted by 23.5 degrees on its axis relative to the plane of the orbit of the earth. Because of this the sun rise and set position vary by up to 23.5 degree north or south in a span of year.
Similarly, the moon also rises from east and sets in west. The orbits of earth are approximately 5.1 degrees offset from the orbit plane of the earth around the sun.
The moon makes an entire loop of the earth in about 28 days by moving about 13 degrees in the sky every day. Meanwhile, The Earth rotates through 15 degrees every hour in order to rotate through 360 degrees every day.
As a result, the moon is moving 15 degrees ahead in its orbit from the Earth. So, after every 24 hours the earth has rotated back around to the same place before night but the moon has gone 15 degrees ahead of the Earth. This causes a delay in the rising of the moon each night.
So, the moon doesn’t rise at the same time each night because of the speed of earth’s rotation and the moon’s orbit, the moon rises about 50 minutes late each day.
Therefore, no, we cannot see the moon rising at the same time tomorrow.
Additional information:
Because of the tilt in the axis of the earth and Earth’s elliptical orbit across the sky the sunrise and set also vary each day.
It means sun and moon rise and set time are not the same each day but they vary according to the situation.
Note:
It is possible that one may assume by themselves that the sun and moon rise at the same time each day and only because of this the length of the day is fixed which is about 24 hours but this is a myth.
The moon rises by some delay each day because of the speed of Earth’s orbit and moon’s orbit. The length of the day is not dependent upon the rise and set of moon and sun.