How long moon

But two to four times each year, a full Moon occurs when the Moon's orbit intersects Earth's plane of orbit, placing the Moon in Earth's shadow — and a lunar eclipse occurs! How long does it take our Moon to go around Earth?

It takes 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes for our Moon to complete one full orbit around Earth. However, it takes our Moon about This is called the synodic month. The difference between the sidereal and synodic months occurs because as our Moon moves around Earth, the Earth also moves around our Sun.

Our Moon must travel a little farther in its path to make up for the added distance and complete the phase cycle. What is the dark side of the Moon? In spite of the phrase, there actually is no dark side of the Moon! Just like Earth, our Moon rotates on its own axis and experiences daylight and dark cycles. Our Moon's day and night cycles are a little longer than Earth's — the Moon spins on its axis once every Our Moon's period of rotation matches the time of revolution around Earth.

In other words, it takes our Moon the same length of time to turn once on its axis as it takes it to go once completely around the Earth! Do other planets have moons? Several of the planets in our solar system have natural satellites that orbit them. Some are so recently discovered that they have not yet been named. Mars has Phobos and Deimos, two small moons that circle very close to the martian surface. Jupiter has more known satellites than any other planet — 61! The answer is yes, though it may seem contrary to what our eyes observe.

The moon orbits the Earth once every It also takes approximately 27 days for the moon to rotate once on its axis. As a result, the moon does not seem to be spinning but appears to observers from Earth to be keeping almost perfectly still. Scientists call this synchronous rotation. The side of the moon that perpetually faces Earth is known as the near side.

The opposite or "back" side is the far side. Sometimes the far side is called the dark side of the moon, but this is inaccurate. When the moon is between the Earth and the sun, during one of the moon phases called the new moon, the back side of the moon is bathed in daylight. The orbit and the rotation aren't perfectly matched, however. The moon travels around the Earth in an elliptical orbit , a slightly stretched-out circle.

When the moon is closest to Earth, its rotation is slower than its journey through space, allowing observers to see an additional 8 degrees on the eastern side. When the moon is farthest, the rotation is faster, so an additional 8 degrees are visible on the western side.

Related: The moon: 10 surprising lunar facts. If you could journey around to the far side of the moon as the Apollo 8 astronauts once did, you would see a very different surface from the one you are accustomed to viewing.

While the near side of the moon is smoothed by maria — large dark plains created by solidified lava flows — and light lunar highlands, the far side is heavily cratered. The moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth. In other words, the moon rotates on its axis in about the same amount of time it takes to revolve around Earth — 27 days 8 hours, which is called sidereal month.

So we always see the same side of the moon; there is no "dark side of the moon. A lunar month , also called a synodic month, is the time it takes for the moon to complete a lunar cycle — full moon to full moon. A lunar month is about 29 days 13 hours. A range of factors determines how long it takes to reach the moon. Human missions, for instance, tend to take longer than passenger-free satellites. Whether or not an object stops at the moon or just zips by also comes into play.

With no propulsion system, the sphere-shaped satellite was hurled into space, and took only 34 flight-hours to make the trip.

After its flyby, the satellite went into orbit around the sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars. This remains one of the fastest trips to the moon. Rather than travel a direct path, SMART-1 spiraled around Earth to reach its satellite, arriving more than a year after launch.

Instead of propellant, SMART-1 made the first use of an ion engine, in combination with gravity assist maneuvers, to reach the moon making it extremely fuel efficient. The extended path provided significant insight into the Earth-moon system.