Tides

Front

What causes tides?

Back

The gravitational interaction of Earth, the moon, and the sun.

Front

What type of tides would this arrangement of earth-moon-sun create? (The sun and moon are mostly in a line with Earth)

Back

Spring tide

Answer explanation

The sun and moon work together to make the high tides higher and the low tides lower.

Front

What type of tide would this arrangement of earth-moon-sun create? (The sun and moon are approximately at a right angle to each other with Earth at the corner.)

Back

Neap tide

Answer explanation

The sun and moon compete against each other to make the high tides not so high and the low tides not so low

Front

Which exerts a stronger gravitational pull on Earth's oceans?

Back

the Moon

Answer explanation

Even though the sun is WAY bigger than the moon, it is 93 million miles away so it has about half the effect on the tides as the moon has.

Front

____ is what you call an area with one high and one low tide each day.

Back

Diurnal tide

Front

____ is what you call an area with two high and two low tides each day.

Back

Semidiurnal tide

Front

If the moon were to move CLOSER to Earth, what would happen to the tides?

Back

High tides would get higher

Answer explanation

Having the moon closer would cause a stronger gravitational attraction between it and Earth, including the ocean water.

Front

Why does the moon's gravitational pull have more of effect on tides than the sun's gravitational pull?

Back

the moon is MUCH closer to the Earth than the sun

Answer explanation

The sun is about 389 times as far away from Earth as compared to the moon.

Front

Why does Venus have no significant effect on Earth's tides?

Back

Because Venus is so far away from Earth.

Answer explanation

Venus can be as close as about 28,000,000 miles from Earth and as far as about 152,000,000 miles from Earth. This is too far away to have any significant effect on our tides.

Front

North Carolina beaches have 2 high and 2 low tides every day. If the beach is at high tide at noon, what will you see if you look again about 6 hours later?

Back

Low tide