Why does the Moon always face one side of the Earth?
Many people mistakenly assume that the Moon, unlike the Earth, does not rotate on its axis. This is a fundamentally incorrect statement since the Moon also performs similar rotations.
The thing is that the rotation of the Moon around its axis has such a character of speed, that during the rotation around the Earth, the motion of our natural satellite is synchronised and leads to the fact that the space body is always turned by the same side to the surface of our planet. Overall, we are able to observe about 59 per cent of the lunar surface.
References
Bills, Bruce G., and Richard S. Nerem. “Tidal Effects on the Rotation of the Moon.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, vol. 105, no. B6, 2000, pp. 13299-13308.
Murray, Carl D., and Stanley F. Dermott. Solar System Dynamics. Cambridge University Press, 2000.