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Tidal locking
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====Earth's Moon==== [[File:Lunation animation April 2007.gif|thumb|This simulation shows the variability in the portion of the Moon visible from Earth due to libration over the course of an orbit. Lighting phases from the Sun are not included.]] Earth's Moon's rotation and orbital periods are tidally locked with each other, so no matter when the Moon is observed from Earth, the same hemisphere of the Moon is always seen. Most of the [[Far side (Moon)|far side of the Moon]] was not seen until 1959, when photographs of most of the far side were transmitted from the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] spacecraft ''[[Luna 3]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Oct. 7, 1959 β Our First Look at the Far Side of the Moon|url=http://www.universetoday.com/105326/oct-7-1959-our-first-look-at-the-far-side-of-the-moon/|website=Universe Today|date=2013-10-07|access-date=2015-02-15|archive-date=2022-08-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812035122/https://www.universetoday.com/105326/oct-7-1959-our-first-look-at-the-far-side-of-the-moon/|url-status=live}}</ref> When Earth is observed from the Moon, Earth does not appear to move across the sky. It remains in the same place while showing nearly all its surface as it rotates on its axis.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Cain|first=Fraser|date=2016-04-11|title=When Will Earth Lock to the Moon?|url=https://www.universetoday.com/128350/will-earth-lock-moon/|access-date=2020-08-03|website=Universe Today|language=en-US|archive-date=2022-05-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220528015905/https://www.universetoday.com/128350/will-earth-lock-moon/|url-status=live}}</ref> Despite the Moon's rotational and orbital periods being exactly locked, about 59 percent of the Moon's total surface may be seen with repeated observations from Earth, due to the phenomena of [[libration]] and [[parallax]]. Librations are primarily caused by the Moon's varying orbital speed due to the [[eccentricity (orbit)|eccentricity]] of its orbit: this allows up to about 6Β° more along its perimeter to be seen from Earth. Parallax is a geometric effect: at the surface of Earth observers are offset from the line through the centers of Earth and Moon; this accounts for about a 1Β° difference in the Moon's surface which can be seen around the sides of the Moon when comparing observations made during moonrise and moonset.<ref>{{cite book | title=The Moon and How to Observe It | first=Peter | last=Grego | year=2006 | pages=47β50 | isbn=9781846282430 | publisher=Springer London | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0wh5HABxVksC&pg=PA48 | access-date=2023-03-19 | archive-date=2023-10-21 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231021104054/https://books.google.com/books?id=0wh5HABxVksC&pg=PA48 | url-status=live }}</ref>
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