I have read various articles on the net regarding whether or not our moon spins on it's own axis. Funny thing is, most professional astronomy sites seem to be trying to tell us that it does spin around it's own axis about once for every orbital period.
My questions are these....If one should drill a hole in the center of a baseball from top to bottom and run a string through it, tie it off with enough left over to swing it about one's head from a distance of a few feet, will it rotate around the string or 'pole/axis' running top to bottom through the center? Or will one side continually face you as it orbits your head?
If it does not spin about it's own axis but instead move it's whole body through space around your hand without spinning, is not the moon actually fixed and stationary in reference to it's own axis, therefore moving only around your hand as the external axis point?
If one can accept the obvious as true, then many astronomy sites that claim the moon spins on it's own axis are teaching error. But are they teaching error intentionally or by accident? A car driving around you in a circle is hardly "spinning on it's own axis". Even accounting for that "once for every rotation" gibberish. An arrow with a string tied to it's middle will present one side to you as you swing it around your head, it too is hardly spinning around it's own axis. These objects, like our Moon, are simply moving in a circular path around an axis point, which I'm sure we all can agree, is quite external to themselves.
Jim Loy owner of:
http://www.jimloy.com/astro/moon0.htm
Insists (despite hard evidence to the contrary) that the moon spins around it's own axis when it's plain to see by even a child, that it doesn't spin it at all on it's own axis (an imaginary pole running top to bottom through the middle of itself) but instead simply moves in an orbit around an axis far away from itself, an axis point that could hardly be called it's own.
And here's Bad astronomy website's explanation:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/moon_spin.html
So who's right? Those laymen who see the moon as not spinning at all, instead merely wobbling around it's own axis a wee bit and merely travelling in a circle around a distant axis point....or those professionals who seemingly try to bamboozle us that it does? Could so many well known astronomers simply be that bad at simple physics? Smells like a funky wedge of 'Lunar Limburger' to me.
And sounds like just more of those ever increasing and condescending: "don't worry your pathetic little heads about such observations, go back to sleep" dismissals.
Many people are not aware of the fact that the largest known impact crater in the solar system (Aitken Basin) is located on the perpetual far side of our very own moon. It is some 1550 miles across!
http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/93/17/22421793.jpg
http://physicsweb.org/objects/world/12/7/8/pw-12-7-8fig4.jpg
Makes me wonder, what secret might they be trying to hide?
On the 'far side'.....
http://www.geocities.com/beyondearth2001/moon_files/image003
http://www.ufocasebook.com/moon.html
Is your head spinning yet? If so, try and remember it's all relative.
Or so they would have us keep guessing....
TS
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