Earth referred to as "moons", after Earth's. The gravitational attraction between Earth and the Moon causes tides on Earth. The same effect on the Moon has led to its tidal locking: its rotation period is the same as the time it takes to orbit Earth. As a result, it always presents the same face to the planet. As the Moon orbits Earth, different parts of its face are illuminated by the Sun, leading to the lunar phases; the dark part of the face is separated from the light part by the solar terminator. Due to their tidal interaction, the Moon recedes
Sun and Moon (Middle-earth) and 'died': the Sun after this for a while left its course, burning a large part of Arda the world (apparently creating the deserts of Far Harad). In writings which are older than the material from which the published "Silmarillion" was drawn, the Moon was described at one point as being created by Morgoth as a mockery of Arda the world, but this notion was abandoned. In the Round World version of the legendarium, the Sun and the Moon were not the fruit of the Two Trees, but actually preceded the creation of the Trees. Instead, the Trees preserved the