Man in the Moon then cooled, becoming smooth, basalt rock. The near side of the Moon, containing these maria that make up the man, is always facing Earth. This is due to a tidal locking or synchronous orbit. Thought to have occurred because of the gravitational forces partially caused by the Moon's oblong shape, its rotation has slowed to the point where it rotates exactly once on each trip around the Earth. This causes the near side of the Moon to always turn its face toward Earth. Man in the Moon The Man in the Moon refers to any of several pareidolic images of
Moon to persist as ice on the surface since they are shielded from the sun. The gravitational field of the Moon has been measured through tracking the Doppler shift of radio signals emitted by orbiting spacecraft. The main lunar gravity features are mascons, large positive gravitational anomalies associated with some of the giant impact basins, partly caused by the dense mare basaltic lava flows that fill those basins. The anomalies greatly influence the orbit of spacecraft about the Moon. There are some puzzles: lava flows by themselves cannot explain all of the gravitational signature, and some mascons exist that are not