Question

Most coastal areas on Earth experience two high tides and two low tides every lunar day. What is a lunar day? Our days on Earth are 24-hour solar days, the time that it takes for a specific site on the Earth to rotate from an exact point under the sun to the same point under the sun. A lunar day is time it takes for a specific site on the Earth to rotate from an exact point under the moon to the same point under the moon. A lunar day is 24 hours and 50 minutes. That means a lunar day is 50 minutes longer than a solar day.

If the first low tide occurs at 5:10 AM on Friday, when will the next low tide occur?

A) 5:10 AM Saturday

B) 5:10 PM Friday

C) 5:35 PM Friday

D) 6:00 PM Friday

Answer 1

C. 5:35 PM Friday There are two high tides and two low tides each day. Divide the lunar day in half. That equals 12 hours and 25 minutes. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

The correct answer is - C) 5:35 PM Friday.

The low tides occur twice in a lunar day, thus they are diurnal. The low tides appear when the Moon is between that point of the planet and the opposite of that point of the planet, thus in between, which is happening twice, on opposite parts of the planet.

Since the lunar day lasts for 24 h 50 m, we should just divide it in two, thus get 12 h 25 m. Than we should add the 12 h 25 to the time when one of the low tides appeared, which is 5:10 AM, so we will get 5:35 PM.

The low tides appear because the Moon is pulling the water upwards with its gravitational pull above the place where it is, so the side parts of the planet have their waters dragged away,thus resulting in the retreating of the water, known as low tide.