Why does the moon follow us when we drive

The Moon doen't look as if it is very far away, but its distance from the Earth is about 239,000 miles. It is this great distance that explains why the Moon seems to follow us when we drive in a car and look up at it. To begin with, our feeling that this is happening is just that, only a feeling a phychological reaction. When we speed along a road, we notice that everything moves past us. Trees, houses, fences, the road - they all fly past us in the opposite direction. But when we look at the Moon we naturally expect it also to be flying past us, or at least to be moving backwards as we speed ahead. When this doesn't happen, we have the sensation that it is following us. In fact we could go along a straight path for miles and the angle at which we would see the Moon would basically be the same.

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FACT FILE

The ebbing and flowing of rides are made by the Sun and Moon pulling on the oceans. When the Sun, Earth and Moon are in a line, there large spring tides.

resources: Tell me why (Chancellor Press)
image 1: https://www.irishexaminer.com/remote/media.central.ie/media/images/a/ApplianceOfScienceSupermoon_large.jpg?width=648&s=ie-436546
image 2: https://www.surfertoday.com/images/stories/tidalforce.jpg

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