What Are Tides? Meaning and What Causes Them
TIDES – In this topic, we will now know and discuss tides, the meaning of this phenomena and what causes these to occur.
Meaning
It is the rise and fall of sea levels that is influenced by the pull between the earth, the sun, and of course, the moon.
Causes
As mentioned above and according to LiveScience, it is because of the gravitational pull between three bodies: the earth, the sun, and the moon. In other words, it is one big tug of war.
The moon is the biggest influence when causing these since it is near enough to tug the oceans into bulge. Inertia also affects the oceans as the earth keeps moving in a very slight circle.
The inertia also causes the oceans to bulge on the opposite side and face the moon. Although strong, the gravitational force of the moon is not strong enough to counter the inertia on the other side of the earth, hence, oceans bulge twice.
The earth can only face 2 high tides and two low tides nearly every 25 hours, or 24 hours and 50 minutes, to be exact. The last 50 minutes is due to the distance the moon moves each day as it orbits around the Earth
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