What are tidal bulges?

Tidal bulges are like big waves that form on Earth because of the Moon’s pull.

Imagine you're playing with a ball in a pool. The ball pulls on the water around it, making the water bunch up near the ball, kind of like when you push your hand into a bowl of soup and the soup rises where your hand is. That's what happens between Earth and the Moon: the Moon’s gravity pulls on Earth's oceans, creating tidal bulges.

When the Moon is close to Earth, it tugs more strongly on the water, making a big wave, like when you push harder on your soup. This is one side of the Earth where the tide gets higher. At the same time, on the opposite side of Earth, water also rises because it’s being pulled away from Earth, just like how the soup might rise on the other side of the bowl if you pull your hand away.

These two big waves are tidal bulges, and they move around Earth as the Moon orbits us. That's why we get high tides and low tides, it’s like the ocean is stretching and shrinking in response to the Moon, just like a rubber band being pulled and let go.