Home › JCE (Botswana) › Science › Gravity and the Moon › The Sun, the Moon and the Earth line up in a str…
The Sun, the Moon and the Earth line up in a straight line. What kind of tides follow?
ANeap tides, the least extreme
BSpring tides, the most extreme
CNo tides at all that day
DTides that never change height
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. Spring tides, the most extreme
1. Both the Moon and the Sun pull on the water of the oceans.
2. When the three bodies are in a straight line, the two pulls act together.
3. The combined pull makes high tides higher and low tides lower.
4. The gap between high and low tide is then at its largest, and these are spring tides.
5. When the Sun and Moon are at right angles the pulls partly cancel out.
6. Those weaker tides, with the smallest gap, are called neap tides.
_Source: Siyavula Natural Sciences Grade 7 (CC BY 4.0), Spring and neap tides_