Paragraph on “How does the Moon cause tides?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

How does the Moon cause tides?

The Earth is attracted lo every in space by the force of gravity. This is a force between objects which depends on how heavy they are and how far apart they are. The force is greater the heavier and closer together the objects are. The Moon is our closest neighbour. It orbits around the Earth at an average distance of 384,400 km  and  238,7o0 km because they are close, the Moon and the Earth have a strong gravitational pull on each other., The Moon’s pull on the Earth causes the waters on the Earth’s surface to bulge outwards slightly on the side facing the Moon. This is balanced by a bulge on the other side, caused by the Earth’s own revolution. This causes the tides which occur twice a day.

The Sun is the largest object in our Solar System and has a gravitational pull on the Earth. However, it is nearly 400 times as far from the Earth as the Moon, so its pull is weaker than that of the Moon. When the Earth, Moon and Sun are in line as on the left of the diagram above) the Moon and Sun pull together on the Earth. This causes very strong high tides known as spring tides. When the Sun and Moon are at right angles to the Earth as in the right hand side of the diagram) they pull in different directions and  so have less effect. At this time, the weakest high tides, known as neap tides, occur.