How do tides work you may by asking well let me tell you. Gravity! I know what you think gravity is something completely different. Well it’s actually a major force when it comes to tides. This is possible because of the gravitational attraction of the sun and the moon on the ocean waters. Did you know that that's not the only comparison between the tides and gravity. The person who discovered gravity was the same person who discovered how tides work.
- A tidal force is a massive object affecting other objects' gravity.
- The further away from the affected object this less the tidal force is.
- Tides depend on the strength of the affected object.
- Earth stretches because of the gravity of the moon.
- The moon has a lower gravitational pull because it's smaller.
- The earth's gravitational pull is 13000 kilometers across.
- The side of the earth that faces the moon is being affected more than the other side of the earth.
- The earth will end up looking like a football because the pull from the side of the earth that is facing the moon is being pulled but we measure gravity from the centre and this means that earth is being pulled away from its centre.
- The bulge that the moon is pulling has mass at least more of it.
- The sun's tidal force is only half of the moon's tidal force.
- The earth's bulge that is caused by the moon's gravitational pull on the earth actually gives a similar pull back on the moon but unlike the earth the moon responds to this pull which forces the moon to orbit faster.
- Long ago the moon bulges were facing the opposite way to the earth which made it orbit rapidly.
- As the earth's gravity pulls on the moon's bulges it makes the moon go slower and move further away the moon actually is moving a couple of centimeters away from the earth each year roughly the same span that your fingernails grow.