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Old 07-30-2017, 07:43 PM
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The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is offline
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Default Re: North American Solar eclipse 8/21/2017

Let's just do the math regarding how long it should take the Moon to revolve (not rotate) around the Earth.


The Moon's mean distance from the Earth is 384,400 kilometers. That means the distance it travels to complete an orbit of the Earth is approximately 2,415,256 kilometers [circumference = pi x the diameter, as we all learned in elementary school]. The Moon's orbit isn't a perfect circle, but it's close enough for rough calculations.

The Moon's orbital velocity is given as 61 kilometers per minute. There are 1,440 minutes per day. So, the Moon travels approximately 87,840 kilometers along its 2,415,256-kilometer orbit each day.

So, it should take the Moon 2,415,256/87,840 days to complete one orbit. That equals 27.5 days, which ... checks out, actually.
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