Cool Planets #2: Watch the Moon Wiggle

I just found out the coolest thing yet about the planets and solar system! The moon rocks! Go ahead, click that link and see the video that shows it.

Or you might say the moon wiggles! This is called libration! Make that one of your vocabulary flash cards list. Who says you can't have vocabulary learning fun?

Explanation: You already know that one side of the moon always faces the earth and the far side of the moon (erroneously called the dark side) always faces away. Well actually that's not one hundred percent accurate. Sometimes a little bit of the far side shows at the top, bottom, left or right or the moon. And of course a corresponding amount disappears temporarily on the opposide side of the moon as we look at it.

This side-to-side and top-to-bottom rocking looks like a wiggle as if the moon was hula hooping. If the moon had a ring, I bet it would spin like a hoola hoop. Moon fun. Fun moon.