MinutePhysics

The Moon's Orbit is WEIRD (2024x6)

Air date: Oct 02, 2024

We think of the moon as orbiting the earth, following a spiraling trajectory as the earth itself orbits the sun. But this is wrong. Not only is the moon's orbit NOT a spiral... there's an argument that the moon actually orbits the sun, not the earth! The moon's trajectory is more like a 12-sided polygon with curved corners than it is a spiral or even a wiggly line.