Why does the moon orbit the Earth counterclockwise?

Answer 1

The Earth is spinning, from west to east, carrying you, me, and everybody else

along with it.

You're spinning toward the east on the Earth's surface. If you want to keep

watching the same object in the sky, then as time passes, you need to keep

turning your eyes farther and farther to the west in order to follow the object.

You don't feel yourself spinning with the Earth. The reason for that is another

whole question, but I'm pretty sure you'll agree that you don't feel the spin. So

your brain naturally decides that it must be the object in the sky that's moving,

from east to west.

The whole sky, viewed as one solid thing, seems to be one giant globe, appearing

to rotate from east to west.

Things toward the 'side' of the rotating globe ... the sun, the moon, the planets,

and the stars around its middle ... appear to rise on the east side, cross the sky

from east to west, and set on the west side.

Things toward the pole of the rotating globe, where the rotation is more noticeable, appear

to rotate. If you're facing north, then east-to-west motion is counterclockwise rotation.

Answer 2

There is no special preference for turning one way or another. In the case of Earth's rotation around the Sun, for example, if you look from one direction it turns clockwise, looking from another direction it turns counterclockwise and whatever direction Earth turns, Venus turns the other way.

Answer 3

Those descriptions have nothing to do with the directionof the Moon's orbital

revolution. If the moon moved in the same orbit but in the opposite direction,

we would still see it grow ('wax') from nothing to full in about two weeks, then

shrink ('wane') from full to nothing in about two more weeks.

When the moon is 'in front' of the Earth, in roughly the same direction from us as

the sun is, then we look at its un-illuminated backside, and we don't see it at all.

During the half-orbit after that, as the moon makes its way around, from in front

of Earth to 'behind' it, the part of the moon's illuminated half that we can see

grows steadily, from none of it to all of it ... no matter which direction the Moon

is orbiting. The next half-orbit accomplishes the same effect, in reverse.

The big difference, if the moon orbited in the opposite direction, would be the

length of the cycle of phases.

Here's how I think it would go:

• Complete set of moon phases:

Now: 29.531 days

Reverse: 25.11 days

• Time from New to Full, or Full to New:

Now: 14.77 days

Reverse: 12.55 days

• Number of complete lunar phase cycles in 1 year:

Now: 12.368

Reverse: 14.547

• Latest Full Moon for an extra one in the same year:

Now: January 11th (in order to have 13 in the same year)

Reverse: January 13th (in order to have 15 in the same year)

Answer 4

We're not sure why almost everything in our solar system turns counter-clockwise. All the planets orbit that way, and the Sun rotates that way, and most of the asteroids orbit that way, and all but two of the planets rotate CCW as well. (The exceptions are Venus, which almost doesn't rotate at all, and Neptune, which is spinning on an axis tipped horizontal.)

We suspect that everything turns that way because that was the direction of rotation of the primordial planetary nebula from which our solar system formed.

Answer 5

The big dipper's location changes because Earth rotates.