What causes high and low tides and why?
The moon and the earth have gravitational pulls toward each other. The moon force causes a distortion of the waters of the earth, pulling the waters towards itself. High tide is caused by the pulling of the earth’s water on the moon’s side by the moon’s gravitational force. On the opposite side of the earth, you might expect low tides to occur, but this not the case. On the opposite side of the earth, the waters tend to bulge away from the moon which is also away from the earth and results in high tide, too. That is why you get high tides twice a day even though rotation of the moon around the earth is only once a day. The low tide occurs in right angels to the moon and is the result of the pull of the earth and moon being close to equal. on the opposite side of the earth – the side further away from the moon – results.
