How does the moon affect our tides at such a distance away?
The attraction between objects is small at a distance, but massive objects, like the earth and moon, start with a great deal of mass. So the moon and sun are both pulling on thhe earth, enough for the earth and moon to continue to orbit the sun and earth respectively. The force between the earth and the moon can be worked out using the equation F=Gmm/r^2 where G is the gravitational constant (6.67300 × 10^-11 m3 kg^-1 s^-2) and the two ‘m’s are the mass of the earth and moon and r is the distance between. The earth weighs 5.98 × 10^24, the moon weighs 7.35×10^28kg and the distance between them is 3.84 x10^8m so (if I pushed the right buttons) that means the force between the earth and moon is near enough 2×10^26 Newtons or 2×10^25 kg (we really don’t need all those decimal places for this discussion) or 2×10^22 tons. So although the distance is great the masses are greater so we have significan, massive, gravitational attraction. After all it has to turn the moon 360 degrees every 27 d
