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answers:
spot a say: The moon is a lot smaller than the earth. The tidal effects of the earth on the moon has slowed the moon's rotation until one revolution equals one rotation. The earth has been slowed by the tidal effects of the moon from 6 hours to the current 24 hours but it will take over a billion years before the earth will become tidally locked to the moon
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Gary B say: It DOES rotate on its axis. If it did not, it WOULD NOT present one side towardxs earth.
The Moons ROTATIONAL PERIOD is the same as its ORBITAL PERIOD -- 28 days. This is called TIDALLY LOCKED, and is the reason why we can SEE only one side.
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Tom S say: The Moon does rotate, otherwise we would be able to see all of it as it revolved around the Earth. It does rotate once every revolution around the Earth, most major planetary satellites (moons) do the same. Laws of physics cause this.
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Adam D say: The moon is tidally locked with the earth, the result of the force of gravity between the two bodies. Check out the Wikipedia for a thorough discussion.
Put a chair in the middle of the room and face the chair. The chair is earth, you are the moon. Move one quarter revolution around the earth, keeping your face towards it the same way the moon does our earth. Are you facing the same direction? No, which means you rotated.
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Al say: You answered your own question. It DOES rotate on its axis. It just so happens that it rotates once around in the same time as it takes to rotate around the earth.
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mike1942-f say: It does rotate on its axis, just doing it at exactly the right rate to keep the same face toward earth as a result of tidal locking - moon is small, Earth is big.
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Nyx say: It does rotate on its axis. If it didn't, we would see all sides of it - over a period of time.