How many times does the moon revolve around the sun in one year??

Question

My brother and I were having a discussion about the moon. One of our questions was how many times the moon revolves around the earth between January 1st and December 31st. If you know the answer, do tell!

Answer 1

The Moon is not directly orbiting the Sun. It is orbiting the Earth, and the two of them together are orbiting the Sun. That means that the Moon goes around the sun precisely once every year, after you correct for leap years. At some point in the future it will be flung away from the Earth and fall into its own orbit around the Sun, but that won't happen for billions of years.

Answer 2

365.25 days in a year.

Moon orbits the earth every 27.5 days.

365.25/27.5 = 13.28 times / year.

If you really want to get specific, the numbers are

365.2422 days in a year.

Moon orbits the earth every 27.321582 days.

365.2422/27.321582 = 13.37 times / year.

UPDATE:  This is one of the funniest things I've seen on here yet.  You have to read the ENTIRE question. In the details section, he states it correctly, asking how many times the moon revolves around the earth in one year indicating strongly that the main part of the question is worded incorrectly.

Thanks for all the thumbs downs.  Shame y'all can't eat some crow and go back and fix your mistake.

Answer 3

Although the earth and moon revolve about a common focus  (near to the center of the earth), they also orbit the sun as a group. Therefore, the moon's orbital period is the same as the earth's (1 year).

Answer 4

Amazing how many answers failed to actually read the question on this one. The Moon orbits the Earth, and is carried around the Sun with it. The Moon therefore goes once round the Sun every time the Earth does, in other words once per year. It goes round the *Earth* about 13 times, but goes round the *Sun*, as your question asked, once in one year.

Answer 5

The Moon completes one orbit around Earth in 27.321582 days (relative to fixed stars).

The time interval from midnight Jan. 1 to midnight Jan.1 of the following year is:

365 days on normal years,

366 days on leap years.

365.2425 days (average over very long periods).

365.2425 / 27.321582 = 13.368...  (13 and 1 third is close enough).

However, if you want to know how many "lunations" (this is the time to repeat the same phase -- for example, from Full Moon to the next Full Moon), then you'd have to divide by 29.530589 days

12.368...

(There is one less because it is counted in relation to the Sun instead of the stars and we would have gone once around the Sun during that time -- therefore, it is 13.368... - 1 = 12.368...)

12 times plus the equivalent of 11 days

The Muslim lunar calendar is based on lunations.  It will complete its 12 months in one year minus 11 days.  Each year, when we compare it to our calendar, the Muslim month of Ramadan begins 11 days earlier.

Answer 6

1 year (365.2422 days) divided by the period between two full moons (29.530588 days) = 12.368 times

Answer 7

The moon revolves around the earth in 27.321661 days (the sidereal month). In 365 days, it will therefore complete 365/27.321661 revolutions, which comes to 13.359. In a leap year, the number of revolutions would be 13.396.

Edit: Yes, Jason, I can see that the title of the question is different from the text, but like most people, I assumed that the text was correct, because the answer to the title is the rather obvious 'once'.