Because of the sun's gravitational pull, why don't we lose the moon?

Question

Is the sun's gravitational pull on the moon greater or less than the earth's pull on the moon? Well, the sun doesn't steal our moon away, so the earth must be pulling harder, right? Well, if you do the calculation you will find that it is not true! The sun pulls more than the earth, so why don't we lose the moon?

Answer 1

planets orbit the un in a oval form(it's not full circles). and when they reach the closest point  to the sun in their orbit they are accelerated faster due to the sun's gravity, but centrifugal force makes it drift away from the sun. so in the calculations try not to forget the centridugal force

Answer 2

We are actually losing our moon. It's drifting farther and farther from Earth each year (not by much) but it will eventually drift away from Earth.

Answer 3

Because the Sun is pulling on the Earth as well.  

The orbit of an object depends on acceleration due to the force of gravity vs the force itself.  Acceleration is independent of the mass of the object.  Two objects the same distance from Sun and travelling the same velocity will have identical orbits.  

In the case of the Moon and Earth, their orbits may not be identical, but they're close enough that both are captured by their mutual gravity and both orbit their combined center of mass (which lies under the Earth's surface since the Earth is so much larger).  

In other words, you have two different orbits going on at once.  The Earth-Moon orbit a common center of mass.  The common center of mass has a constant orbit around the Sun (you could still look at it as the Moon and Earth each orbiting the Sun, but each would have a wobbly orbit since the Earth and Moon are distorting the other object's orbit around the Sun).

This is similar to astronauts being "weightless" on the International Space Station or Shuttle.  Gravity is still affecting the astronauts - they're just "falling around the Earth" at the same rate that ISS or Shuttle is.

Answer 4

The sun has stronger gravity, but you have to take distance into account. The moon is slowly drifting away however.

Answer 5

We will eventually (in cosmic time, not to worry) lose the moon as well as the earth itself - the suns nuclear fuel will be exhausted and there won't be anything to keep our entire solar system from collapsing.

The reason the moon doesn't just fly off into the sun is because of the relative distances between the moon and the sun and the moon and the earth. The earth's gravitational pull on the moon is simply strong enough at the much shorter distance to hold it in its orbit.