Spinning the Moon

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I dreamed I was running through darkness. My legs were leaden weights and would not propel me toward a dim light shining though the murkiness. A pervading sense of loss enveloped me, and I knew escape was neither imminent nor possible. A loud whirring sound buzzed in my ear and I turned my head from side to side to make it stop. Scientists believe that the Moon formed early in the solar system’s history after Earth and an object about the size of Mars smashed into each other. The impact sent chunks of Earth and the impactor into space that were pulled together by gravity, creating the Moon. Entertaining Strangers went on to be performed at the National Theatre with Dame Judi Dench and Tim Pigott-Smith playing key roles.

Summer is when the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun - this gives us longer days and means the Sun's rays are more direct, stronger and warmer. Up here on the International Space Station I don’t get affected by the seasons but on Earth the seasons are always changing: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The lunar rotation determined whether the infamous Man in the Moon, a face-like pattern of dark maria on the Earth-facing side, wound up pointing toward our planet. Gravity created an Earth-side bulge in the moon, slowing down its rotation in the past to create the synchronous rotation and keeping the longer lunar axis toward our world. Another theory is the co-formation theory, in which the moon was created at the same time as Earth. In this hypothesis, two massive objects five times the size of Mars crashed into each other. Earth and its moon then condensed out of the clouds of matter that resulted from the collision, NASA reported. Annie grunted in her sleep, and I shifted around in Michael’s arms. “Can you hold that thought until later?”

Meanwhile, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun. The light and heat from the Sun is less direct, and it is spread over a wider area so it brings less warmth. The tilt means that nights are longer, days are shorter. This is winter in the northern hemisphere.

The northern hemisphere continues to tilt more and more towards the Sun, until the longest summer days in June. So as the moon orbits the Earth, it rotates to keep the same side facing us," Moriarty said. "One rotation takes the same amount of time as one orbit, in other words, about a month." Put another way, Earth and the moon exert a gravitational pull on each other, and the gravitational force exerted is always strongest where the two bodies are directly facing each other, causing both Earth and the moon to stretch slightly as they're pulled in the direction of the other. As a result, the moon is stretched into an elliptical shape with its longest axis being tugged to always be facing toward us. This is also what causes Earth's tides to go in and out every day. The 4 stars is an average of the two books, book 1 was quite good with just a few soft spots. But book 2 couldn't hold me till it's conclusion though it showed a lot of promise. I may have out grown gothic novels though... Can you easily predict the tides by following the path of the Moon? Not really! First of all, because the Moon is orbiting in the same direction as the Earth rotates, it takes extra time for any point on our planet to rotate and end up exactly below the Moon. The extra time is ~50 mins. This means that the high tide bulges are never directly lined up with the Moon, but a little ahead of it. This includes a cast of 90 local people, plus musicians, directed by Peter Leslie Wild (Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, Chester Mystery Plays, The Archers) with a script written by Stephanie Dale (Giants on the Hill, Persuasion, several works for the BBC and our fifth community play A Time to Keep).

Tidal Locking

In Scotland we experience winter at the beginning of the year. Six months later the Earth hastravelled halfway around its orbit. The southern hemisphere is now tilted away from the Sun so it is winter.At the same time it is summer in the northern hemisphere because it is now tilted more towards the Sun. I pressed my head into the pillow and tapped him gently on the head with the flat of my palm. “It’s not a shooting star-it’s a comet and an eclipse. It’ll really be spectacular.” I sighed, enjoying the caress of goose bumps as they traveled down my spine. “Michael, not here. Someone might see.” I made no move to step away. I experienced so many emotions with this story. At one point I just wanted to put it down and not finish it. And it wasn't because I disliked it, but because it was so overwhelming that I had a hard time processing all the feelings that were coursing through me. Even though there were a few places throughout that I kinda thought, "well, I'm a little confused",it wasn't enough for me to change my mind on the rating. Twice a month, when the Earth, Sun, and Moon line up, their gravitational power combines to make exceptionally high tides where the bulges occur, called spring tides, as well as very low tides where the water has been displaced. About a week later, when the Sun and Moon are at right angles to each other, the Sun’s gravitational pull works against the Moon’s gravitational tug and partially cancels it out, creating the moderate tides called neap tides.

Our daughter, Annie, was born exactly two weeks after moving into the house. Although my strange attraction to our new home never faded and questions remained unanswered, I pushed them aside and threw myself into my new role as mother. The play is being staged by Dorchester Community Plays Association who would like to thank everyone for their help, support and vital sponsorship that has made the play possible. The Sun is a star, a giant ball of burning gas. The heat and light that it gives off helps to keep everything on our planet alive. When we see the Sun moving across the sky during the day it’s because the Earth is spinning, not the Sun.The sound made me grimace. Reluctantly, I threw off the sheets. “It was nice while it lasted,” I said as I slipped out of bed and into my robe. I leaned down to give Michael a kiss and then hurried to the nursery, where I was being summoned in a tone approaching hysteria. In "Whispers of Goodbye", a devastated widow and grieving mother, left alone and destitute by the Civil War, receives an urgent letter from her sister, who she hasn't seen in years. Elizabeth begs Cat to rush to her aid, telling her she is very afraid. Cat heads to her grandmother's old home in the swamps, where her sister is nowhere to be found. Who can she trust, and can she trust her heart to learn to let love in again? Or will she, in her desperation to protect herself, make things worse?

This story doesn’t end in the past. The same process is happening now. The Moon continues to move away from Earth at a rate of about an inch-and-a-half (4 cm) per year, its drift slowing as it goes. The energy propelling it away comes primarily from Earth’s oceans, which both bulge out in response to the Moon’s gravity and exert a gravitational pull of their own on the Moon. Earth’s bulging oceans don’t exactly match up with the position of the Moon, they’re always a little out of sync because it takes time for all that water to shift and pile up. This interaction does two things: it creates friction that slows Earth’s own rotation, and creates forces that change the Moon’s orbital speed, causing it to fall farther away into space. Other, weaker forces ― related to such factors as the Moon’s tilt, its elliptical orbit, Earth’s deep interior, the influence of the Sun, and more ― also affect the Moon’s motion, but these cause only very subtle changes, and sizes and distances are not to scale. The novel succeeded in evoking a very Gothic feel, but the pacing was excruciatingly slow, the characterizations wavered and didn't always ring true, and the only plot element I didn't guess WELL in advance was Rebecca's true parentage. 2 stars is probably too generous, but the setting/tone were well done, and the narrator did an excellent job under the circumstances. Time and again, New York Times bestselling author Karen White has proven herself to be the “ultimate voice of women’s fiction.”* This book compiles two of the author's earliest works, otherwise out of print in their original editions. The top half of the Earth we call the northern hemisphere, and the bottom half we call the southern hemisphere.The Earth’s tilt means we experience four seasons as we orbit the Sun. So, starting with winter in the northern hemisphere, the Earth moves round and the days get longer and warmer until it becomes spring. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.