Tides The Moon and Sun’s gravity pulls on Earth. The Moon is 400 times closer, so its gravity has more effect. The pull is strong enough to stretch the ocean toward the Moon. On the backside of Earth, there is less Moon gravity, so the Ocean floods in the opposite direction.

Where the ocean is raised (facing the Moon and opposite) is a “high tide”, where it is lower is a “low tide”. High tide Low tide

The Earth rotates once every 24 hours underneath this pull of gravity, so if you started with a high tide, 6 hours later you would have a low tide, 6 hours later a high tide and 6 hours later a low tide. Two of each per day. high low

When the Earth, Moon and Sun are all lined up, the gravity of the Moon and Sun work together to make higher high tides and lower low tides. These are called Spring Tides.

When the Moon and Sun are at a right angle to the Earth, the Moon and Sun’s gravity work against each other, so the high tides aren’t so high, and the low tides aren’t so low. These are called Neap Tides.