Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Low and High Tides....Science!Tell me if it make since!.......Essay?
The gravitational pull of the moon tugs on the surface of the ocean until its surface mounds up and outward in the direction of the moon.When the mound of water has reached its highest point it is called high tide.On the opposite side of the Earth from the moon,the Earth's rotation produces another mound of water which causes another high tide.Between these two high tides are two flat areas on the surface of the ocean which are called low tides.Each day there two hgh tides and two low tides.The time between the high and low tides is a little over six hours and the entire tidal cycle repeats itself four times each day.The earth bulges slightly both toward and away from the moon.As the earth rotates daily,the bulges move across the earth.Since the earth's surface is more fluid than the land it bulges slightly more,resulting in high tides.Tide-generating forces are a result of the gravitational attraction between the Earth, sun, and moon. It was not until Sir Isaac Newton who discovered the law of gravity that the effect of the sun and the moon on the tides was fully understood. All surfaces of the Earth are pulled toward the moon and sun. This force has little effect on land mes, but it does have a very great and obvious effect on the water of the Earth's oceans. Twice each month the tidal range reaches a maximum and these large tides are called the spring tides. Halfway through the monthly cycle the range is much smaller, and these weak tides are called neap tides.As the moon rotates around the Earth, it pulls the water on the nearest side of the Earth outward into a bulge. A similar bulge on the opposite side of the Earth is caused by the water being thrown outward by the planet's spin. These two bulges travel around the globe, producing two high tides each day. During time of the new moon and full moon, when the sun and moon are in a straight line, their gravitational pull combine and produce spring tides; at this time the high tides are very high and the low tides are very low. When sun and moon are at right angles from the Earth, during the quarter phases of the moon, the gravitational pull on the oceans is less producing a smaller difference between high and low tide known as a neap tide.
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