Our beautiful moon is located at an average distance of 238,855 miles away from us. During its revolution around the Earth, it has 8 key phases over the course of about 27.321 days, give or take. The moon orbits our Earth due to the gravitational pull from our planet. The moon’s gravity also has an effect on Earth. The moon’s gravity pulls the water in our oceans on the sides closest and opposite to it, causing it to pull and squeeze bodies of water. This is what causes tides in our oceans. However, because of time dilation, high tides are a little ahead of the moon’s orbit (around 50 minutes).