What direction does the moon rise and set?
The moon rises in the east, and sets in the west. Much of the moon’s apparent motion is due to the spin of the earth. The moon appears to go around the earth about once a day. The rotation of the moon (the time it takes to spin once around on its own axis) takes the same amount of time as the moon takes to complete one orbit of the Earth, about 27.3 days. This means the moon’s rotation is synchronized in a way that causes the moon to show the same face to the Earth at all times. One hemisphere always faces us, while the other always faces away. The lunar far side (aka the dark side) has been photographed only from spacecraft.
